Lung Cancer Prevention | HowStuffWorks
Unlike many other cancers, there are some steps you can take to prevent lung cancer. If you are a smoker, stop. Numerous smoking cessation courses and aids are available today. If you are a nonsmoker, try to avoid second-hand smoke. Other preventive steps include:
- Test your home for radon, especially if you live in an area known to have high levels. State radon offices can offer more information on correcting this problem. The Environmental Protection Agency Web site, located at http://www.epa.gov/iaq/contacts.html also provides information on how to lower radon levels in homes.
- Maintain a desirable weight.
- Eat a varied diet; cut down on total fat intake.
- Limit alcohol intake.
- Be aware of and limit exposure to industrial agents at work such, as nickel, chromate, asbestos and vinyl chloride.
Finally, be sure to have regular check-ups. If you are a smoker, ask your health care professional about how to stop.
Research and New Treatments on the Horizon
New chemotherapy approaches: Clinical trials are currently investigating the use of neoadjuvant treatments (chemotherapy or a combination of chemotherapy and radiation before surgery) for early stage lung cancer. Other clinical trials are testing new chemotherapy drugs, while other studies are testing whether the effectiveness of existing chemotherapeutic drugs can be improved by combining them with each other or with radiation therapy.
Vaccines, manufactured from the patient's own tumor cells or a protein common to lung cancer cells, are presently under investigation. They use the body's immune system to fight lung cancer. The goal is to cause the immune system to recognize some of the abnormal substances in lung cancer cells and as a result, kill these cells.
Specially designed antibodies are being produced in the laboratory that can be injected into patients to seek out lung cancer cells. Toxins or radioactive atoms can be attached to these antibodies, so that the cell-killing chemicals or radiation is targeted specifically to the cancer cells, preventing destruction of healthy cells of the body. These specialized (monoclonal) antibodies are being studied in clinical trials alone and in combination with standard chemotherapy regimens.
Special drugs called angiogenesis inhibitors are being studied in clinical trials, alone and in combination with standard chemotherapy regimens. These agents are designed to block the formation of blood vessels to the tumor, thereby starving and, hopefully, killing them.
Small molecules are being designed to specifically target and interfere with some aspect of tumor cell function. One such example is an experimental compound called ZD1839 (Iressa), an inhibitor of the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR), which is present on the tumors of some patients with nonsmall-cell lung cancer.
Copyright 2003
National Women's Health Resource Center Inc. (NWHRC).
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