Gene changes linked to lung cancer

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in the US. By more than three times any other cancer. People who smoke have a high risk of getting lung cancer. The longer you smoked, the higher the risk. But people who have never smoked can also get it. Symptoms include a cough that does not go away or gets worse. Coughing up blood. Chest pain. Feeling tired or weak. Being short of breath. Lung infections that do not go away or come back. Often, these signs do not show up until you have had lung cancer for a while. That is one reason why it kills so many people. There are two types of lung cancer. One is small cell lung cancer. Heavy smokers tend to get this type. The other is non-small cell lung cancer. This is the more common type. We are all born with gene changes. Most of these do not cause problems. But some can raise our risk for certain cancers. These gene changes can play a role in both types. Scientists at Vanderbilt University Medical Center want to know more about the first type. They will use BioVU to look for people with and without small cell lung cancer. Then, they will check if those patients have gene changes in a certain gene. They will also look for people with and without other types of cancer. Again, they will check for gene changes in the same gene. The scientists think that gene changes in this gene may make you more likely to get small cell lung cancer. Patients may get it earlier, with less smoking history than others. They may not have a family history of cancer. If this turns out to be true, it could help us. First, we could check for gene mutations early. If we know you are at risk, we can do checkups more often. The sooner you catch cancer, the better chance you can beat it. Second, we might find new ways to treat small cell lung cancer. That will help anyone with the disease. Last, we may even find a way to prevent it, or slow it down. If there is a link between the gene changes and other cancers, it could help us do the same for them too.