Researchers find malignancy-risk gene signature for early-stage non-small cell lung cancer

Advancement could aid in prognosis and prediction

2012-01-09

(Press-News.org) TAMPA, Fla. (Jan. 6, 2012) – A malignancy-risk gene signature developed for breast cancer has been found to have predictive and prognostic value for patients with early stage non-small cell lung cancer. The advancement was made by researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Fla., who published their study results in a recent issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

According to corresponding author Dung-Tsa Chen, Ph.D., associate member with the Moffitt Biostatistics program, non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) accounts for 80-90 percent of all lung cancers. Patients with NSCLC have a 30-50 percent relapse rate after surgery and a 40-70 percent five-year survival rate. Although adjuvant chemotherapy (ACT) has increased survival rates and has become standard treatment for NSCLC, a proportion of patients do not derive any benefit from it.

"Better prognostic tools have been needed to identify both patients with a high probability of relapse and those who would benefit from adjuvant chemotherapy," said Chen.

He added that the Moffitt researchers are confident that their newly tested malignancy-risk gene signature for NSCLC will provide that tool because their malignancy-risk gene signature is a proliferative gene signature, one associated with both cancer risk and progression.

According to the researchers, their findings suggest a "transferability" of the malignancy-risk gene signature between breast cancer and NSCLC, a "unique feature not seen in other gene signatures derived for various tumor types."

"To the best of our knowledge, our study is the first to show a high consistency of the gene signature on both breast cancer and NSCLC," said Chen. "The gene signature demonstrated a statistically significant association with overall survival and other clinical predictors in NSCLC."

Originally, the malignancy-risk signature gene was designed to distinguish between normal breast tissues and breast cancer tissues by identifying abnormal molecular structure. The Moffitt research team further applied the signature to tissue samples from 442 NSCLC patients in the Director's Challenge Consortium for the Molecular Classification of Lung Adenocarcinoma.

"Additionally, the malignancy-risk gene signature has demonstrated the potential to identify early-stage NSCLC patients who would be likely to benefit from adjuvant chemotherapy," explained Chen. "This malignancy-risk gene signature may provide an additional tool to help identify a subset of patients at high-risk for low overall survival and who may benefit from ACT."

Study results revealed a predictive feature of the malignancy-risk gene signature with an ability to predict overall survival in NSCLC patients. Further, the malignancy-risk gene signature was able to consistently distinguish between low and high malignancy risk groups and correlate the groups by good to poor overall survival rates.

In the future, the researchers plan on carrying out a similar but large study using patient-donated tissue samples from Moffitt's Total Cancer Care ™ program (www.moffitt.org/totalcancercare), a partnership between patients, doctors and researchers to improve all aspects of cancer prevention and care. Patients participate by donating information and tissue. Researchers use the information to learn about all issues related to cancer and how care can be improved.

### The study was performed by an interdisciplinary team including: W. Douglas Cress, Ph.D., a basic scientist; Eric B. Haura, M.D., an oncologist; Timothy J. Yeatman, M.D., a surgeon; Domenico Coppola, M.D., a pathologist; and three biostatisticians, Ying-Lin Hsu, Ph.D., William J. Fulp, M.S., and Dung-Tsa Chen, Ph.D. The work was supported, in part, by the Moffitt Cancer Center Core Grant and Lung SPORE Grant from the National Cancer Institute; National Functional Genomics Center Grant from U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command; and the Taiwan National Science Council.

About Moffitt Cancer Center Follow Moffitt on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/MoffittCancerCenter Follow Moffitt on Twitter: @MoffittNews Follow Moffitt on YouTube: MoffittNews Located in Tampa, Florida, Moffitt Cancer Center is an NCI Comprehensive Cancer Center – a designation that recognizes Moffitt's excellence in research and contributions to clinical trials, prevention and cancer control. Moffitt currently has 14 affiliates in Florida, one in Georgia, one in Pennsylvania and two in Puerto Rico. Additionally, Moffitt is a member of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network, a prestigious alliance of the country's leading cancer centers, and is listed in U.S. News & World Report as one of "America's Best Hospitals" for cancer. Moffitt marks a very important anniversary in 2011 – 25 years committed to one mission: to contribute to the prevention and cure of cancer.

Media release by Florida Science Communications

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Hybrid silkworms spin stronger spider silk

2012-01-09

This week, research was published showing that silk produced by transgenically-engineered silkworms in the laboratory of Malcolm Fraser, Jr., professor of biological sciences at University of Notre Dame, exhibits the highly sought-after strength and elasticity of spider silk. This stronger silk could possibly be used to make sutures, artificial limbs and parachutes. The findings were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and highlighted for their breakthrough in the long search for silk with such mechanical properties. The manuscript was published ...

Mars rover to spend winter at 'Greeley Haven,' named for late ASU geologist Ronald Greeley

2012-01-09

TEMPE, Ariz. - NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity will spend the next few months during the coldest part of Martian winter at Greeley Haven, an outcrop of rock on Mars recently named informally to honor Ronald Greeley, Arizona State University Regents' professor of planetary geology, who died October 27, 2011. Long passionate about exploring the solar system and Mars in particular, Greeley was involved with many missions to the Red Planet, including Mariners 6, 7, and 9, Viking, Mars Pathfinder, Mars Global Surveyor, and the two Mars Exploration Rovers. He was ...

Experts offer pointers for optimizing radiation dose in pediatric CT

2012-01-09

An article in the January issue of the Journal of the American College of Radiology summarizes methods for radiation dose optimization in pediatric computed tomography (CT) scans. Approximately seven to eight million CT examinations are performed for various pediatric clinical indications per year in the United States. Justification of clinical indication is the most important aspect of reducing radiation dose with CT scanning. A substantial number of pediatric CT scans lack appropriate justification or can be replaced with other imaging modalities with lower or no ionizing ...

The nuclear, biological and climate threat - 2011 reviewed

2012-01-09

In this special issue of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, published by SAGE, experts reflect on 2011 and highlight what to look out for in 2012 in the areas of nuclear energy, nuclear weapons, biosecurity, and climate change. Topics that have made the headlines during the previous 12 months, including the increased tension surrounding Iran's nuclear programme, the aftermath of the Fukushima incident, and the state of US policy on climate change, are analyzed in detail in this special issue. At the Doomsday Clock Symposium on January 9-10 in Washington, DC, the Bulletin's ...

Salk scientists map the frontiers of vision

2012-01-09

There's a 3-D world in our brains. It's a landscape that mimics the outside world, where the objects we see exist as collections of neural circuits and electrical impulses. Now, scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies are using new tools they developed to chart that world, a key step in revolutionizing research into the neurological basis of vision. For the first time, the scientists have produced neuron-by-neuron maps of the regions of the mouse brain that process different kinds of visual information, laying the groundwork for decoding the circuitry ...

Tiny worm points to big promise

2012-01-09

Two related studies from Northwestern University offer new strategies for tackling the challenges of preventing and treating diseases of protein folding, such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and Huntington's diseases, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), cancer, cystic fibrosis and type 2 diabetes. To do its job properly within the cell, a protein first must fold itself into the proper shape. If it doesn't, trouble can result. More than 300 diseases have at their root proteins that misfold, aggregate and eventually cause cellular dysfunction and death. The new Northwestern ...

Tobacco company misrepresented danger from cigarettes

2012-01-09

A new UCSF analysis of tobacco industry documents shows that Philip Morris USA manipulated data on the effects of additives in cigarettes, including menthol, obscuring actual toxicity levels and increasing the risk of heart, cancer and other diseases for smokers. Tobacco industry information can't be taken at face value, the researchers conclude. They say their work provides evidence that hundreds of additives, including menthol, should be eliminated from cigarettes on public health grounds. The article is published in PLoS Medicine http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1001145 In ...

Majority groups support assimilation -- except when they're not majorities

2012-01-09

We generally think that views about how to integrate a diverse society depend on people's positions in that society—that is, whether they're in the racial, religious, or cultural majority or a member of a minority. In the U.S., "people tend to believe that blacks prefer pluralism and whites prefer assimilation," says University of Delaware psychologist Eric Hehman. Assimilation asks minorities—whether newly arrived or historically rooted—to drop their cultural identities and adopt the ways of the majority. Pluralism recognizes and even celebrates minority cultures, which ...

Better research is needed to understand why elders are happier

2012-01-09

Older people tend to be happier. But why? Some psychologists believe that cognitive processes are responsible—in particular, focusing on and remembering positive events and leaving behind negative ones; those processes, they think, help older people regulate their emotions, letting them view life in a sunnier light. "There is a lot of good theory about this age difference in happiness," says psychologist Derek M. Isaacowitz of Northeastern University, "but much of the research does not provide direct evidence" of the links between such phenomena and actual happiness. In ...

UF research on newly formed plants could lead to improved crop fertility

2012-01-09

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — A new University of Florida study shows genomes of a recently formed plant species to be highly unstable, a phenomenon that may have far-reaching evolutionary consequences. Published online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the study is the first to document chromosomal variation in natural populations of a recently formed plant species following whole genome doubling, or polyploidy. Because many agricultural crops are young polyploids, the data may be used to develop plants with higher fertility and yields. Polyploid ...

Researchers find malignancy-risk gene signature for early-stage non-small cell lung cancer

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES: