NOVEL CANCER DIAGNOSIS
Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in the United States. Now, new research could help in early detection and treatment of the disease.
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Only 14 percent of lung cancer patients make it to the 5-year mark, so Chuck Waser knows he's lucky to be alive.
Chuck Waser
Lung cancer patient
"It's been in some respects nothing short of a miracle."
After nearly two years of treatment Chuck is cancer- free -- to celebrate, he got Lola.
What happens in this lab at Duke University offers promise to other lung cancer patients.
Researchers can identify the difference between normal and cancerous lung tissue by comparing proteins.
Edward Patz Jr., M.D.
Thoracic Radiologist
Duke University Medical Center
Durham, NC
"We hope by understanding the proteins in the cell, then we'll be able to understand why a cell acts a certain way. For instance, why a cell turns into a cancerous cell and what makes it a cancerous cell."
Michael Campa, Ph.D.
Radiology Researcher
Duke University Medical Center
Durham, NC
"So what this may allow us to do is to tailor therapy based on what exact type of tumor someone has."
Chuck Waser
"Certainly the earlier you catch it, the better chance you have of getting remission or effectively getting a cure."
Chuck beat the odds and hopes this new research gives other patients that same chance.
While lung cancer is the model currently being tested at Duke, researchers say the new technology could be applied to other types of cancers and diseases as well.
BACKGROUND: Only 14 percent of lung cancer patients are able to do. Researchers at Duke University Medical Center want to help more cancer patients beat the odds. The key may be in tailoring each patient's treatment to his specific kind of cancer. Not every tumor responds the same way to the myriad cancer drugs available. Diagnosing the specific kind of cancer is currently a difficult process, with much dependence on educated guessing. Now, scientists at Duke have come up with a way to know more accurately the kind of cancer that needs to be fought off.
PROTEIN TESTING: Each kind of cancer has a unique protein signature. However, radiology researcher Michael Campa, Ph.D., explains testing for the specific kind of protein is not as easy as it sounds. "If you look at the most abundant protein in a cell and compare that to the rarest protein, there may be a difference of 100 billion or so," says Campa. He compares the process to searching through a truckload of peanuts for a single almond. "If you're only allowed to look at, say, 1,000 peanuts at a time, it's going to take a long time before you see that almond." The process the Duke scientists are working on is called ADEPPT -- or Accentuation of Differently Expressed Proteins using Phage Technology. Phage is a shortened way of saying bacteria phage, which is a virus that does not infect humans or other mammals ... it only infects bacteria. The DNA of these viruses can be easily manipulated to help researchers pick out certain types of proteins from a sample. The research team looking into this new method is headed up by Edward Patz, Jr., M.D., a Thoracic Radiologist at Duke. "We hope that by understanding the proteins in a cell, then we'll be able to understand why a cell acts a certain way," says Dr. Patz. "For instance, why does a cell turns into a cancer cell, and what makes it a cancer cell, meaning why does it grow, or proliferate, unchecked?"
TARGETED THERAPIES: The hope is that ADEPPT will help doctors pinpoint the exact kind of cancer treatment a patient needs. It could also one day be used to help detect cancer using a simple blood test ... doctors would be looking for elevated levels of certain proteins in the blood. Right now the technology is still being developed. So far, the research team has mostly focused their phage technology testing on lung cancer. "My particular interest is the lung cancer," says Dr. Patz. "It is the most common form of cancer, and we'd like to then take this actually further, to not only show that we can find the proteins, but then we can use these proteins again for better diagnostics and therapeutics."
Becky Levine
Duke University Medical Center
(919) 660-1308
levin005@mc.duke.edu
Copyright © 2005 Ivanhoe Broadcast News, Inc.
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