|
Finding
Lung Cancer May Now Be Easier
Excerpt By Robert Preidt, HealthScoutNews
(HealthScoutNews)
-- A new kind of "imaging agent" can improve the detection
of lung cancer that has spread beyond the lungs, leading to better
care and fewer unnecessary or inappropriate surgeries, contends
new research.
The imaging
agent, Tc-99m Depreotide, was 30 percent more effective than a
CT scan alone in detecting cancer that had spread from the lungs
to the lymph nodes in the central area of the chest, called the
pulmonary hilum and mediastinum, the study says.
"We are
finding it is more sensitive in detecting tumors than CT by far
and even slightly more sensitive than the PET scan, which has
been shown in the literature to be much more sensitive than CT,"
says lead author Dr. Alan Waxman, director of nuclear medicine
and co-chairman of imaging at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los
Angeles.
Depreotide
was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration about a
year ago.
In Waxman's
study, 45 people with lung cancer were injected with Depreotide,
and a nuclear medicine camera was used to take images of their
chest and lungs. The scans were compared with biopsy samples collected
four weeks earlier.
Depreotide's
sensitivity to detect cancer and its ability -- or "specificity"
-- to rule out cancer were measured by looking for lung cancer
that had spread to the lymph nodes in the central chest, and by
the agent's ability to find single pulmonary nodules, which are
abnormal collections of cells in the lungs that may or may not
be cancerous.
The study
found Depreotide's sensitivity to detect these nodules was 94
percent, while its specificity to rule out cancer was 78 percent.
For the lymph nodes in the central chest, Depreotide's sensitivity
was 100 percent and its specificity 80 percent.
By contrast,
CT scans were 60 percent sensitive for detecting cancer in the
central chest nodes and 70 percent specific in ruling out cancer.
Depreotide's
ability to provide a better picture of what's happening in the
lungs and chest will help doctors make better decisions about
patient care, the researchers say.
CT scans often
fail to detect smaller tumors that may have spread beyond the
lungs, experts say, and the scans may not be able to distinguish
between cancerous and benign tumors. That means relying on CT
scans alone could lead to unnecessary or inappropriate surgery,
say the researchers. Findings were presented at a recent meeting
of the Society of Nuclear Medicine.
Waxman says
six study participants who underwent Depreotide treatments had
strong positive results for cancer in the central chest nodes,
but they did not show signs of cancer during initial analyses
of biopsy samples. After the positive Depreotide results, he says,
the pathologist re-examined the biopsy samples and found that
two of the six people did indeed have cancer in their central
chest lymph nodes.
"So it
seems like this is a very sensitive agent in detecting some part
of the cancer that has reached the lymph nodes," Waxman says.
"This may be an agent that can predict where the cancer is
going before it gets there."
He and his
team are doing new research to determine if seemingly "false-positive"
Depreotide results are a predictor of cancer that wasn't seen
during initial biopsy tests.
What To
Do
The American
Cancer Society says lung cancer kills almost 160,000 Americans
each year and is the leading cause of death from cancer for both
men and women in the United States. It kills more people than
colon, breast and prostate cancers combined. More than 169,500
new cases of lung cancer are expected to be diagnosed this year.
Experts maintain that early detection and accurate diagnosis are
critical to managing a patient's treatment and improving long-term
survival rates.
For more information
about lung cancer, visit the
National Cancer Institute or the
American Lung Association online.
Reference
Source 101
For more information on how to prevent other diseases, use
PreventDisease.com's "Quick
Prevention Resources".
|
