Safe to Smoke? Bull$h!*

I am so pissed off this morning. Mainly because of the assault that must be led by Phillip Morris, DeCode and the Devil Himself.

In a recent press push.....from as far as I can see. There is now a "magic bullet" for smoking and avoiding cancer. Recently published data in the Journal Nature is being over hyped. From Good Morning America to Fox News to MSNBC to my friend Hsien at Eye on DNA (Well hers isn't so much hype)

From Her blog

All three studies identified regions on chromsome 15 that are associated with nicotine dependence, lung cancer, and peripheral artery disease. The deCODE study focused on SNP rs1051730 located on chromosome 15q24 in the CHRNA3 nicotine acetylcholine receptor. People with one copy of the “T” version of this SNP had:

30% increase in risk of lung cancer OR of 1.3
20% increase in risk of peripheral artery disease OR of 1.2

Half of people of European descent have at least one copy of the higher risk SNP and 10% may have two copies which increases their cancer risk by 80%...... OR of 1.8

From the Nature Report
Tobacco is thought to be responsible for about 5 million premature deaths every year and smoking is still clearly the largest risk factor. But the new results suggest that, amongst smokers, some people may be as much as 80% more at risk than others thanks to their genes.

A solid analysis...but there are some old statistics out there that you need to know...
First, in the quoted 80% study the Odds Ratio of cancer in Homozygotes was 1.8. OR of 1.8 equals an increased risk of 80%.....That is small potatoes. Why? See here.

Well, In an environmental analysis in 1990 it was found that children exposed to Household exposure to 25 or more smoker-years during childhood and adolescence doubled the risk of lung cancer an odds ratio of 2.07. Obviously genotype was not evaluated.

So why is this group of smokers likely to quit if they even won't quit to prevent their children from getting cancer? Just chalk it up to the genes!

So what is the risk of cancer for smokers? You should go to the NCI website and see for yourself.

Is this a worth while genetic test? No. The risk of head and neck cancer, something smokers get too is skyrocketed in the face of family history or alcohol consumption. If you think 80% is high, try 4200%....... naive reporters (Except for you Amy, sorry to bash your colleagues) To predict lung cancer risk more accurately, try the M.D.Anderson Model.

Why is this study and the press surrounding it silly and misleading? Because smoking causes more than just lung cancer......The study should have included all cancers....in that case you would have found much more interesting results...

The Sherpa Says:
Bottom Line, if deCode comes out and markets this test they should be shot. If they do sell it, it is only a sign of how absolutely horrible the financial position they are in. Smokers don't need further encouragement to keep smoking.....It is hazardous to them and the ones they love. Just quit....most people can't stand your smoke or paying for your cancers.... Here's to NY!

Tip60 tips off breast cancer aggresiveness

According to a study published today in the journal Nature shows that a gene called Tip60 is involved in the development of breast cancer. But more importantly.........reduced expression of Tip60 protein leads to more aggressive tumors. Tip60 is a tumor suppressor gene unlike others.....

Let me explain. Usually you are required to have both copies of a tumor suppressor gene affected to start developing tumors. I feel that this theory along with all things mendelian will start to fade away. Why? Because we are much more complicated that punnet squares. The field of systems biology is growing and we will soon realize that we are a complex interactome, not just autosomal/Xlinked/Ylinked dominant/recessive genes.

So where were we? Well it turns out that this tumor suppressor gene only needs one copy malfunctioning to start enhancing tumor growth

From the Primary Investigator Dr Tim Crook "More aggressive types of breast cancers tend to recur after treatment, spread to other parts of the body and respond less well to chemotherapy. The identification of Tip60's role in breast cancer is a step towards predicting the aggressiveness of the disease and then individualising chemotherapy for women. If we can transfer this knowledge to the clinic, it could have dramatic effects."

From the Study

* Activity of the Tip60 gene was found to be lower in nearly half of all ductal breast cancers studied (21 of 52 cases) and in 17 out of 20 of tumours classed as 'high grade'

* The amount of TIP60 protein was studied in an additional 179 breast cancer samples. In almost three quarters of these (129/179), there was no TIP60 protein present in the cells' nucleus - in healthy cells this is where most of it is located. The proportion of cancers lacking nuclear TIP60 was even higher when they singled-out aggressive cancers and early cancers - suggesting that this is an early event in breast cancer development.

The Sherpa Says: Personalized medicine is coming and in many cases it is already here. This is an example of tumor tissue sampling to analyze outcomes. What is truly needed is a tissue bank that can put phenotype with genotype. Then we can have an excellent expression array analysis combined with phenotypic markers. This is the best way to put together personalized oncology. Trust me it is coming. Soon.....