Nearly 6 Percent Of Lung Cancer Tissue Samples From Non-Smokers Show Signs That HPV May Have Triggered The Tumors

Article Date: 12 Apr 2013 - 1:00 PDT Source: Medical News Today  A common virus known to cause cervical and head and neck cancers may also trigger some cases of lung cancer, according to new research presented by Fox Chase Cancer Center at the AACR Annual Meeting 2013. Examining tissue samples from lung cancer patients, the researchers found that nearly 6% showed signs they may have been driven by a strain of human papillomavirus (HPV) known to cause cancer. If HPV indeed plays a role in lung cancer in some patients, the next step is to better understand those tumors so they can be treated more effectively. "The ultimate goal," says study author Ranee Mehra, MD, attending physician in medical oncology at Fox Chase, "is to determine if we can target our therapies to the specific characteristics of these tumors." Studies from Asia have shown that lung tumors are frequently infected with HPV. The pattern makes sense, explains Mehra - the lungs are located very near the head and neck, which are known to be at risk of tumors upon exposure to some strains of HPV. To investigate, she and her colleagues examined 36 tissue samples from people diagnosed with non-small cell lung cancer who had never smoked, part of the Fox Chase Cancer Center Biosample Repository. The reason they chose non-smokers, Mehra explains, is that smoking is a major cause of lung cancer - but in non-smokers, the explanation is often less obvious. The researchers found that 4 out [...]

2013-05-09T15:55:12-07:00May, 2013|Oral Cancer News|

Lower survival rate for head and neck cancer patients who suffer from stress and depression

Source: Medical News Today Studies have shown that stress can affect the immune system and weaken the body's defense against infection and disease. In cancer patients this stress can also affect a tumor's ability to grow and spread. However, the biological mechanisms that underlie such associations are not well understood. Now, researchers at Fox Chase Cancer Center find that poor psychosocial functioning is associated with greater vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) expression - a signaling protein that not only stimulates tumor growth, but is also associated with shorter disease-free survival in head and neck cancer patients. "There is research showing that high VEGF expression in other cancers, such as ovarian, is associated with psychosocial factors," says Carolyn Fang, Ph.D., Co-Leader of the Cancer Prevention and Control Program at Fox Chase, who presented the study at the 32nd Annual Meeting & Scientific Sessions of the Society of Behavioral Medicine on Thursday, April 28th. "This information coupled with what we already know about VEGF promoting tumor aggressiveness and poorer prognosis in head and neck cancer patients, certainly gave us a reason to look at this biomarker." VEGF not only plays a pivotal role in angiogenesis, but it is also regulated by stress hormones and key cytokines - a category of signaling molecules used extensively in intercellular communication. In the current study, Fang and colleagues looked at 37 newly diagnosed, pre-surgical head and neck cancer patients, to see if psychosocial functioning, such as perceived stress and depressive factors, was associated with VEGF, a [...]

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