Dr. He and colleagues at the Laboratory of Thoracic Surgery at the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences collected blood samples from 943 patients WITH lung cancer and 479 people WITHOUT lung cancer and compared the blood levels of IDH1 in both the patients with lung cancer and the persons without lung cancer.
Dr. He’s team’s findings were that the patients with a type of lung cancer known as Adenocarcinomas had almost 3x higher blood levels of IDH1 than people without lung cancer. They also discovered that patients with a type of lung cancer known as a Squamous Cell lung cancers had almost 2 1/2 times higher blood levels of IDH1 than people without lung cancer.
What this means is that we can conceive the thought that we could take people who have smoked cigarettes for a long time and, if we suspect that they may have lung cancer, draw their blood and study their blood to see if we find IDH1 in their blood. If we do, as we will see below, we can then re-draw their blood and run tests for other blood markers known as CEA, Cyfra21-1 and CA125 and if the person who has smoked cigarettes for many years and who we suspect may have lung cancer has high blood levels of ALL 4 of these biomarkers, we should then have a very high suspicion that this person may indeed have a lung cancer – even if we still can’t see one in his or her chest x ray.
The combination of measuring IDH1 along with other biomarkers in the blood may increase the ability of IDH1 to find lung cancers early: Dr. He and his team further noted that if they combined the detection of IDH1 with the detection of other biomarkers such as CEA, Cyfra21-1 and CA125, the ability to detect cancer versus a false positive increased. This means that the combination of all of these biomarker tests together was better than just measuring IDH1 by itself. On top of that, by combining the detection of IDH1 with these other, more familiar and known biomarkers, the team was able to get a sense of the TYPE of non-small cell lung cancer which was being detected such as Adenocarcinoma versus Squamous Cell carcinoma. This could truly be a wonderful new development if further testing proves that it is indeed as good as it seems.
We do not know if IDH1 – or its combination with other biomarkers such as CEA, Cyfra21-1 and CA125 is the final answer in allowing us to find lung cancers early; but the key is that we – the scientific community – are getting closer to finding a blood test with which we can find lung cancer early. As the world’s – and the US – population grows older, we can unfortunately expect more and more lung cancers to be found. We all know that lung cancer is the most prominent and principle cause of cancer deaths IN MEN AND WOMEN worldwide (and in the USA). We as well know that if we can find lung cancers early, we are able to remove them with surgery and are thus able to very possibly cure the person with the lung cancer. Finding lung cancer early, therefore, can only mean one thing – decreased deaths due to lung cancer.
Till next we speak again,
Mark Sperry for
www.CancerInPlainEnglish.com
Cancer therapy – and many therapies really – can produce surprising combinations this way sometimes. We may discover, for example, that one medication which is good for one thing is actually good for something else. For example, the medication Thalidomide was discovered to cause horrible birth defects when given in England years ago for “morning sickness” but we now have discovered that this same medication is now helpful for Multiple Myeloma.
The same with a medication called Aflibercept (also known as Eylea or Zaltrap). This medication is a VEGF inhibitor which is useful in the treatment of Colon Cancer. VEGF stands for Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor. VEFG is a protein which colon cancer produces in order to make itself more blood vessels in order to feed itself better as it grows. By doing this, the tumor, as it grows, does not outgrow its blood supply. Well, Aflibercept blocks VEGF and thus makes the tumor outgrow its blood supply and starve/suffocate to death because of lack of blood supply and oxygen.
Researchers at Stanford have recently discovered that VEGF inhibitors block (as they are supposed to do) the development of new blood vessels. This then leads to decreased oxygen delivery to the cells. Decreased oxygen delivery is known as hypoxia. Hypoxia, then makes the cells to produce a substance known as HIF-2Alpha which in turn produces another protein called IRS2 which thus makes it easier for cells to absorb and work with the glucose that surrounds them. What this means is that, if this research continues to bear fruit, we may discover that it may be possible to give Aflibercept to patients with diabetes as a way to help the cells of diabetic patients to more easily absorb the glucose that surrounds them and thus, have less of the glucose swimming around their bodies (which is the problem with diabetics).
As more of this information comes forward, I will keep you informed. Mark Sperry for Cancer In Plain English
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