Air pollution reduces life span of lung cancer patients : indiatimes

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Air pollution reduces life span of lung cancer patients

Air pollution reduces life span of lung cancer patients

A population-based study has suggested air pollution is deadly for the patients with lung cancer, as it shortens their survival span.The finding shows that the trends were most noticeable for early stage disease, particularly adenocarcinoma, the most common type of non-small cell lung cancer, which accounts for 80 percent of lung cancer cases.Air pollution has been linked to a higher incidence of lung cancer and death, but little is known about its potential impact on an individual's chances of survival after diagnosis.In a bid to clarify this, the researchers tracked the health outcomes up until the end of 2011 of more than 3,52,000 people, newly diagnosed with lung cancer between 1988 and 2009, whose details had been entered into the US California Cancer Registry.Their average age at diagnosis was 69.The participants' average exposure to nitrogen dioxide (NO2), ozone (O3), particulate matter of less than 10 um, and less than 2.5 um, in diameter (PM10 and PM2.5 ) was calculated using data from US Environmental Protection Agency air quality monitoring stations, mapped to area of residence.Almost half of the study participants lived more than 1500 metres away from a major interstate motorway; less than 10 percent lived within a 300 metre radius of one.Their risk of death from any cause was then estimated, according to disease stage and tumour cell type.After taking account of these and other potentially influential factors, the calculations showed that higher exposures to each of the four pollutants were associated with a correspondingly heightened risk of death and shorter average and five-year survivals.But the magnitude of heightened risk was greatest for patients with early stage disease, among whom average survival was 2.4 years for those with high PM2.5 exposure (at least 16 ug/m3) and 5.7 years for those with low exposure (less than 10 ug/m3), for example.Overall, for patients with early stage disease, risk of death from any cause was 30 percent greater for NO2; 26 percent greater for PM10; and 38 percent greater for PM2.5.The impact of exposure to O3 was small.These trends were particularly evident among patients with early stage adenocarcinoma.As might be expected, survival for patients with advanced disease was poor, irrespective of exposure to pollutants.This is an observational study so no firm conclusions can be drawn about cause and effect.Nevertheless, there are plausible biological mechanisms for the associations found, they say, as ambient air pollution has been classified as a cancer causing agent by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC)."Our observed associations were clinically significant ([less than or equal to 38 percent] increased risk of death depending on stage and pollutant), suggesting that reductions in exposure have the potential to improve lung cancer survival," they concludedThe study has been published online in the journal Thorax.


let alone foxnews

Air pollution tied to shorter survival with lung cancer

Air pollution tied to shorter survival with lung cancer

Exposure to air pollution has long been associated with an increased risk of lung cancer, and a new study suggests it might also be tied to a faster death from the disease.Researchers examined cancer registry data on more than 350,000 people diagnosed with lung cancer in California and found patients who lived in communities with higher than average levels of air pollution typically died sooner than their peers who lived in places with cleaner air.Patients with lung cancer may be a new subgroup of people susceptible to the health impacts of air pollution, since exposures after diagnosis may impact how long they live, said lead study author Sandrah Eckel, a researcher at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.Worldwide, lung malignancies kill about 1.6 million people a year, causing nearly one in five cancer deaths, Eckel and colleagues note in the journal Thorax.


additionally reuters

AstraZeneca drug selumetinib fails in lung cancer study

AstraZeneca drug selumetinib fails in lung cancer study

A sign is seen at an AstraZeneca site in Macclesfield, central England May 19, 2014.LONDON AstraZeneca's cancer drug pipeline suffered a setback on Tuesday when the experimental drug selumetinib failed to meet its goal in a late-stage trial for lung cancer.Hopes for the medicine had already been reduced after it failed in another study for treating a rare cancer of the eye in July 2015, although it may still have a role in a type of thyroid cancer and in cancers growing along nerve tissue.Selumetinib is viewed as less important than AstraZeneca's recently launched cancer drugs Tagrisso and Lynparza, and its closely watched experimental product durvalumab.


furthermore fiercebiotech

AstraZeneca notches up another PhIII failure as lung cancer trial falls short

AstraZeneca notches up another PhIII failure as lung cancer trial falls short

AstraZeneca ($AZN) has posted another set of negative numbers for the cancer drug it licensed from Array Biopharma ($ARRY).The latest setback saw the MEK 1/2 inhibitor selumetinib fail to improve either progression-free or overall survival in patients with KRAS mutation-positive non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).SELECT-1, the Phase III trial, enrolled 510 patients with locally-advanced or metastatic NSCLC and randomized them to receive either selumetinib or a placebo on top of chemotherapy drug docetaxel.AstraZeneca advanced into the trial on the back of Phase II data that showed statistically-significant improvements in progression-free and overall survival, but these findings failed to carry over into the larger trial of selumetinib as a second-line treatment for NSCLC.