The Florida Lung Doctors are pleased to bring readers some recent and dramatic research. New therapies are being developed for the treatment of Lung Cancer, and 2012 is already becoming a year of encouraging discoveries.
Inder Verma, Salk’s American Cancer Society Professor of Molecular Biology stated, “Lung cancer is one of most lethal cancers and prognosis for patients is often poor, with only about 15 percent surviving more than 5 years.”
Such statistics motivate researchers in Institutions like the Salk Institute, as well as physicians like the doctors of the Florida Lung, Asthma and Sleep Specialists, here in Orlando.
In their experiments, Scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies worked with drugs used to target an enzyme named IKK2. This enzyme is actually involved in triggering inflammation. There were two key steps to the dramatic conclusion that these same drugs might become new treatments for some lung cancers:
Key 1. The medical community have long be aware of a connection between cancer and inflammation. It should be understood that inflammation is actually the body’s first line of defense against infection.
Key 2. The discovery made in the research is that some of the same mechanisms that protect the body with the inflammation response are also, according to Dr. Verma, “hijacked by genetic mutations involved in the development of cancer.” Basic logic then showed that blocking the enzyme slowed the growth of cancer cells in mice and gave them longer lives. For more details of the actual research, please check out our most recent resource.
Exciting research, written February 12 in “Nature Cell Biology,” indicated that drugs that hinder the enzyme’s activity might become cancer therapies in the future.
The Florida Lung Doctors are committed to bringing you the most recent lung cancer research. We also strive to bring as heartening hope to the patients who suffer from this dreadful disease.
