Recently, you might have heard that a defect in the BRCA2 gene could indicate breast or ovarian cancer.
Indeed, this defect was announced as part of the genetic profile that instigates the prophylactic mastectomy elected by Angelina Jolie. This week, Florida Lung, Asthma and Sleep Specialists uncovered new studies revealing more dark secrets from the gene, BRCA2.
Recent Research by British and American Enterprises!
Last month, researchers unraveled another dark secret behind defects in the BRCA2 gene. “Scientists announce a previously unknown link between lung cancer and a particular BRCA2 defect, occur in two percent of the population.”
Let’s take a look at some of the mathematical statistics involved in this new discovery:
1. Smokers, as a group, have been analyzed as having a 13 per cent chance for contracting lung cancer in their lifetime. That statistic shapes up as 16 per cent in men and 9.5 per cent in women.
2. The genetic defect is not as rare as you might think. “It occurs in around 2 per cent of the population.”
3. The researchers discover that BRCA2 increases the risk of developing lung cancer by about 1.8 times.
4. So if you add smoking behavior to the genetic defect, the new study ups the ante for lung cancer risk. Researchers have proven that “around one in four smokers with the BRCA2 defect will develop lung cancer.”
5. To give you an idea of the wide-spread significance of this realization, let’s take a look at Great Britain. We know that about 10 million adults in Great Britain smoke, “which means that up to around 200,000 adult smokers could have the specific BRCA2 defect, known as BRCA2 c.9976T,” according to the June 2014 study. These are alarming results.
Cancer Detectives: How Did Researchers Accomplish Their Conclusions?
The Institute of Cancer Research, London, conducted comparisons of the DNA of 11,348 Europeans with lung cancer. They also investigated 15,861 who were cancer-free. Then, they simply detected the differences at specific points in their DNA. They were funded by both the US National Institute of Health, and Cancer Research UK.
In addition to the above recently announced finding, they discovered that the defect in the BRCA2 gene was “particularly strong in patients with the most common lung cancer sub-type, called squamous cell lung cancer.”
This type of lung cancer is a form of non-small cell lung cancer. Statistics say that eighty percent of diagnosed lung cancers are non-small cell lung cancers. Of those, about 30% are squamous cell.
Please follow this convenient resource to discover more about this type of lung cancer.
How Does This Knowledge Help Patients?
The researchers reasoned that patients with squamous cell lung cancer could be helped with drugs that are effective in cancers with BRCA2 mutations. These drugs are the PARP inhibitors, and they have a good reputation in clinical trials involving breast and ovarian cancer patients with BRCA2 mutations. At this point in time, this is only theoretical since testing PARPS on lung cancer patients has not yet been accomplished.
Study leader, Professor Richard Houlston, stated forthrightly: “Our study showed that mutations to two genes, BRCA2 and CHEK2, have a very large effect on lung cancer risk in the context of smoking. Mutated BRCA2 in particular seems to increase risk by around 1.8 times.” He added, “Our results show that some smokers with BRCA2 mutations are at an enormous risk of lung cancer — somewhere in the region of 25 per cent over their lifetime.”
Naming lung cancer as the biggest cancer killer in the UK, he restated his commitment to persuading people not to smoke. He re-iterated the above statistics, making the case that the anti-smoking appeal was “more critical in people with an underlying genetic risk.”
Researchers like Professor Richard Houlston, are like detectives who are battling a super-criminal named cancer. Likewise, the Florida Lung, Asthma and Sleep Specialists are treating patients with the latest techniques.
Together, doctors and researchers will eventually unravel all the environmental and genetic mysteries of this the killer cancer. We will defeat this criminal disease which destroys families, and robs patients of accomplishments. We especially appreciate studies with cross international borders by sharing findings and financial burdens, to bring hope to lung disease patients of the present and future.
