Cancer Care

Laurence Ball, who lives in Shetland, had surgery at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary to remove a tumour on his lung.

But Mr Ball, 58, was later told there had never been cancer in the organ. He is now planning legal action.

NHS Grampian said the case was in the hands of the Central Legal Office and the board considered it inappropriate to comment further.

The problems started when Mr Ball suffered a chest infection in May 2005 and was sent for tests at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary.
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Scientists say cholesterol-lowering drugs called statins may protect against the development of lung cancer. In a study appearing this month in the journal Chest, researchers report that statin use of six or more months was associated with a 55 percent reduction in risk for lung cancer. Risk dropped for all age groups—regardless of race, smoking status or body-mass index. The study is significant because it involved a very large group. Researchers from Louisana State University and the Overton Brooks V.A. Medical Center in Shreveport, La., studied more than 480,000 patients enrolled in the Veterans Administration Health Care System over a six-year period. Lung cancer is the most lethal form of the disease in the United States.
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June 25, 2008 marks a revolutionary day in history for anybody who cares about Lung Cancer, the Number One Cancer Killer in this country. It’s almost tantamount to July 4th, Independence Day, for Lung Cancer. For the first time, in the last four decades, Lung Cancer finally has a voice, thanks to Senators Chuck Hagel, Dianne Feinstein and the tireless work over the last five years of Laurie Fenton, Sheila Ross and the Lung Cancer Alliance.
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In the May issue of Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, scientists from Aichi Cancer Center in Nagoya and Nagoya University Graduate School of Medicine speculate that bacterial infection and inflammation resulting from poor oral care that leads to tooth loss could also be driving development of these cancers. Periodontal disease is known to increase risk for stroke and heart disease.
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A CANCER survivor will be celebrating his recovery when he runs to raise money for research into the disease.

Graham Swan, who is taking part in the BUPA Great Manchester Run on Sunday, was diagnosed with lung cancer just one week after he ran in the 10km event last year.

The father of two said it hit his family like a `bolt out of the blue’ when doctors found a tumour the size of a golf ball in his right lung during an x-ray.

He had an operation to remove it and was out of action for three months.

But Graham says he is lucky it was discovered early and now he wants to spread the message that early detection is `the best cure’.

He hopes to raise at least £500 for Cancer Research UK by running the race.

Engineer Graham, 45, from Dukinfield, said: “When I got ill I set myself a target to run in the race again this year.”

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A protein responsible for repairing damaged DNA may be a vital link to explaining how smoking causes lung cancer, U.S. researchers reported on Tuesday.

Lung cells exposed to cigarette smoke produce less of the protein, called FANCD2, the team at Oregon Health & Science University Cancer Institute reported.

Without FANCD2, damaged DNA can cause cells to proliferate out of control instead of destroying themselves as normal cells do.
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In the May issue of Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, scientists from Aichi Cancer Center in Nagoya and Nagoya University Graduate School of Medicine speculate that bacterial infection and inflammation resulting from poor oral care that leads to tooth loss could also be driving development of these cancers. Periodontal disease is known to increase risk for stroke and heart disease.
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New Brunswick - More Canadian children with cancer are surviving, according to Canadian Cancer Statistics 2008 released by the Canadian Cancer Society. For all childhood cancers combined, the five-year survival rate is estimated to be 82 per cent — an increase of 11 per cent over 15 years.

“Increased survival rates are obviously good news for everyone,” said Anne McTiernan-Gamble, Executive Director of the Canadian Cancer Society, New Brunswick, in a press release.
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The findings are being reported at the American Thoracic Society 2007 International Conference.

The study, which also did not find any increased lung cancer risk from the supplements, is one of the most detailed, prospective observational studies to look at the effect of vitamin supplements instead of vitamins from foods on lung cancer risk.

“People are spending billions of dollars on supplements, and there is a general sense in the population that they prevent cancer,” said researcher Chris Slatore, M.D., of the University of Washington School of Medicine in Seattle.”We need to find out if they’re helpful or even harmful.”

The 77,738 men and women in the VITamins And Lifestyle (VITAL) study, ages 50-76, filled out an extensive questionnaire on vitamin intake over the previous 10 years, including how much of each supplement they took. The researchers then checked to see how many of the people in the study had lung cancer, using a government cancer registry. They found 393 cases of lung cancer. Adjusting for such risk factors as smoking, age, sex, cancer history, other lung disease and history of lung cancer, they found no statistically significant relationships between different types of supplements and lung cancer.

In 1996, a large study known as the CARET study which was looking into the effects of the dietary supplements beta-carotene and retinol (vitamin A), was halted after the supplements were found to increase lung cancer risk, particularly among smokers. That study, and others, encouraged researchers to look more deeply into the relationship between supplements and lung cancer, Dr. Slatore said.

The new lung cancer and supplements study is part of a larger study that is looking at supplements and various types of cancer, including prostate cancer and breast cancer, Dr. Slatore said.

Supplements have been getting a lot of attention this year. In February, the Journal of the American Medical Association published an overview of studies that found that supplements of beta-carotene, vitamin E, or vitamin A slightly increases a person’s risk of death.

http://www.thoracic.org

You might expect firefighters to be more at risk of getting lung cancer, but a year-long study of 800 California firefighters found they’re also twice as likely to get other types of cancer and suffer fatal heart attacks.
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