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Vanderbilt Cancer Study Looks For High-risk Smokers

George Burns puffed on a cigar, told jokes about it and lived to be 100 during his career in comedy while hundreds of thousands of unlucky smokers died from lung cancer.

A new research study at Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center seeks to unravel the mystery of why some people are more susceptible to the disease. If you’re between 55 and 74 and you smoke cigarettes or used to, it’s a study that could save your life. The 480 people who sign up will be closely monitored for five years, increasing the odds of early detection and survival.

Dr. Pierre Massion and his research team will look for specific biomarkers to see whether they herald development of the disease. These biomarkers have been identified as suspect during 10 years of research at Vanderbilt, but the link has not been conclusively proved.

“Our study is very much a biomarker validation study,” Massion said.

Participants will give blood, urine and tissue samples.

“The idea is there may be in these people’s lungs or in these people’s blood some proteins or genes that tell us whether they are more likely to develop lung cancer,” he said.

This research initiative, which is limited to Vanderbilt at this point, comes on the heels of a much larger study that proved the benefits of early detection. The death rate decreased by 20 percent when the presence of the disease was detected with low-dose CT scans, allowing people to seek treatment sooner.

The computed tomography scanning provides much more detail than a traditional X-ray. The National Institutes of Health announced initial results from that trial, which involved 53,000 participants across the nation, in November.

Bronchoscopies included

The Vanderbilt study goes beyond image-based diagnosis methods. People in the study group will also undergo bronchoscopies.

“A bronchoscopy is basically passing a little camera down your nose to inspect your windpipes,” Massion said. “That allows us to collect some samples of the windpipes and determine within these samples whether biomarkers can be measured and predict whether people have lung cancer or are likely to develop lung cancer.”

Participants will also undergo CT scans, which typically cost $300 to $1,000 apiece. They will receive all the diagnostic tests free throughout the study.

“We are offering three bronchoscopies,” Massion said. “This not any lighter than getting a colonoscopy. It truly takes a commitment from these folks. At the same time, they would have the major benefit of if they developed lung cancer, we would refer them very early for them to have this problem taken care of.”

The study, which received funding from the National Cancer Institute, does not cover the cost of cancer treatment.

Vanderbilt is partnering with VA hospitals in Nashville and the Matthew Walker Comprehensive Health Center to recruit people considered at high risk for lung cancer. The study is open to anyone in the Nashville area who meets the criteria.

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