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15
Oct 2019
New blood test may assist in prediction on whether lung cancer will spread
New research has suggested that doctors may be able to predict if lung cancer will spread and become terminal through a simple tumour sample or blood test, raising hope that tens of thousands of patients can be spared from gruelling radiotherapy and chemotherapy.
Currently, around 47,000 people in the UK and 234,030 in the USA are diagnosed with lung cancer every year – latest figures show it is responsible for the deaths of four out of five patients within five years.
It is believed a key reason for the low survival rate is because the tumour cells rapidly evolve, develop resistance to treatments and evade the immune system. The majority of lung cancer patients are treated with gruelling chemotherapy, which carries severe side effects, to destroy the cancer cells.
Three scientific studies, published in the journal Nature Medicine, looked into how lung cancer cells evolve and spread. One revealed that patients with more tumour cells in their blood were most likely to see a spread and for the cancer to become untreatable. Another showed researchers could predict how aggressive the cancer would be through the analysis of the genetics of a tumour at the point of analysis. The third found that lung tumours release a mixture of different cancer cells, confusing the immune system.
Researchers say the studies could help to identify people who were most at risk of aggressive forms of the disease.
Cancer Research UK’s chief clinician and lead researcher, Professor Charles Swanton, said “Our research has shown that lung cancer is an extremely complicated disease with a patchwork of different cells making up each individual tumour.
“We think understanding this variation, how these different cells come about and how this variation is detected by the immune system will be key to improve lung cancer survival.”
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Posted by Tony May, Partner/head of Clinical Negligence Department, Chadwick Lawrence LLP (tonymay@chadlaw.co.uk ), medical negligence lawyers and clinical negligence solicitors in Huddersfield, Leeds, Wakefield and Halifax, West Yorkshire.
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