About 402,326 Americans are living today with lung cancer, with 224,210 new cases estimated to be diagnosed in 2014. The death rate for the cancer has grown 3.5 percent from 1999 to 2012 and around 159,260 are expected to succumb to it in 2014. That's 27 percent of all deaths associated with cancer for the year!
At the rate lung cancer progresses, it has caused more deaths than the number for colon, breast and pancreatic cancers, the three most common types of the disease, combined. All cancers are a concern but lung cancer progression definitely needs attention, piquing the interest of researchers from the Cancer Research UK Manchester Institute.
In a study published in the journal Cell Reports, researchers analyzed protein ties keeping cells together and saw that these ties are severed in cancer cells. This increases the likelihood that cells will break loose from each other and spread. Cell processes normally discard unused parts so it's not unusual for cell bonds to break. However, it's dangerous when those bonds are for keeping cancer cells in place because it increases chances of the cancer spreading.
According to the results of the study, the ties that bind cells together are controlled by TIAM1, a protein. However, in the case of lung cancer, cell processes become flawed, resulting in too many TIAM1 ties being scrapped.
"This important research shows for the first time how lung cancer cells sever ties with their neighbors and start to spread around the body, by hijacking the cells' recycling process and sending it into overdrive. Targeting this flaw could help stop lung cancer from spreading," explained Dr. Angeliki Malliri, the study's lead researcher.
Given lung cancer's prevalence, lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths not just in the United States but in the world, accounting for 1.6 million deaths back in 2012 globally. According to the National Institutes of Health, costs of cancer care in the country amounted to $124.6 billion overall, with $12.1 billion going into lung cancer. In 2005, up to $36.1 billion in productivity was lost due to lung cancer as well.
Research into the early stages of lung cancer (or cancer in general) is important in creating treatments that would one day be able to prevent the disease from spreading to other parts of the body and worsening a patient's condition. According to Cancer Research UK's Nell Barrie, should a treatment like that be developed, it would be a game changer.
