We¡¯ve often heard that smoking causes lung cancer, triggering DNA mutations in normal lungs but the same hasn¡¯t really been scientifically proven.
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However, a new study conducted by researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine sheds light on how some smokers tend to catch the disease while many don¡¯t.?
For the study, researchers used a new sequencing technique called single-cell multiple displacement amplification to compare mutation of normal lung epithelial cells from two types of individuals -- 14 never smokers from ages 11 to 86 and 19 smokers from the ages of 44 to 81 who had smoked a maximum of 116 pack-years (where one pack-year of smoking equals one pack of cigarettes smoked per day for a whole year).?
Cells were collected from patients who were undergoing bronchoscopy for diagnostic tests unrelated to cancer.?
Researchers found that mutations accumulated in the lungs of non-smokers as they aged with more mutations spotted in lung cells of smokers.?
Simon Spivack, a co-senior author of the study explained, "This experimentally confirms that smoking increases lung cancer risk by increasing the frequency of mutations, as previously hypothesized. This is likely one reason why so few non-smokers get lung cancer, while 10% to 20% of lifelong smokers do."
The study also saw that the number of cell mutations detected in lung cells increased in a straight line with the number of pack-years of smoking, but this rise in cell mutations halted after 23 pack-years of exposure.?
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Spivack added, "The heaviest smokers did not have the highest mutation burden. Our data suggest that these individuals may have survived for so long in spite of their heavy smoking because they managed to suppress further mutation accumulation. This levelling off of mutations could stem from these people having very proficient systems for repairing DNA damage or detoxifying cigarette smoke."
Researchers now wish to look at measuring an individual¡¯s capacity for DNA repair or detoxification which could offer a new way to assess one¡¯s risk for lung cancer.?
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