Tag Archives: lung
Aqua Lung Recalls Buoyancy Compensators Due to Drowning Hazard
The SureLock II weight pocket handles on the scuba gear can detach as divers are trying to rise to the surface in an emergency.
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Racial Disparities Seen in U.S. Lung Cancer Treatment
TUESDAY May 21, 2013 — Racial disparities exist in the treatment of non-small cell lung cancer among hospitals in the United States, according to a large new study.
Although most patients with this condition undergo surgery as part of their initial treatment, researchers found that blacks were less likely than Hispanics or whites to have surgery in the early stages of the disease. Hispanics were more likely to undergo surgery for stage 1 and stage 2 disease than white patients.
“In our study of more than 1.2 million patients diagnosed with [non-small cell lung cancer] in U.S. hospitals between the years 2000 and 2010, we found statistically significant racial disparities in the surgical management of these patients,” researcher Jayanth Adusumalli said in an American Thoracic Society news release.
Up to 90 percent of lung cancers are non-small cell, according to the American Cancer Society.
The new study involved 1.2 million patients from a national cancer database, about 975,000 of whom received their initial treatment following a diagnosis of non-small cell lung cancer. Eighty-two percent of white patients received treatment, as well as 79 percent of black patients and 76 percent of Hispanics.
However, 82 percent of Hispanics and 78 percent of whites with stage 1 disease underwent surgery, compared to 73 percent of blacks who had surgery as their initial form of treatment. For patients with stage 2 disease, 67 percent of Hispanics, 64 percent of whites and 56 percent of blacks had surgery.
The study was scheduled for Tuesday presentation at the annual meeting of the American Thoracic Society in Philadelphia. The data and conclusions should be viewed as preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.
“The significant racial differences in the initial treatment of [non-small cell lung cancer] that we found in our study may contribute to the recognized racial disparities in cancer patient outcomes,” said Adusumalli, of the Creighton University Medical Center in Omaha, Neb. “Further research into the underlying causes of these treatment disparities may help improve the treatment and prognosis of all lung cancer patients.”
More information
The U.S. National Institutes of Health has more about racial disparities in health care.
Posted: May 2013
Materials in Some Household Products Tied to Lung Damage
TUESDAY May 14, 2013 — Inhaling ultrafine particles from so-called “nanomaterials” — which are used in a growing number of household and commercial products, including sunscreens, ink in copy machines and lightweight sporting equipment — can cause lung inflammation and damage, a team of U.S. scientists says.
The findings of the study — which looked at the two most common types of engineered nanomaterials — are important because of the large quantities of nanomaterials being used in industry, electronics and medicine, the researchers said.
Nanomaterials are used to make product stronger and more flexible.
Earlier studies had found that breathing nanomaterials could harm the lungs, but this study is believed to be the first in which different laboratories across the country produced similar results regarding the risk.
The findings should help in creating policy for the safe development of nanotechnology, according to the authors of the study, which was published online recently in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.
“This research provides further confirmation that nanomaterials have the potential to cause inflammation and injury to the lungs,” Kent Pinkerton, a study senior author and the director of the Center for Health and the Environment at the University of California, Davis, said in a university news release. “Although small amounts of these materials in the lungs do not appear to produce injury, we still must remain vigilant in using care in the diverse applications of these materials in consumer products and foods.”
More information
The American Lung Association explains how to protect your lungs.
Posted: May 2013
Study: Regular marijuana use not linked to lung cancer
Regular marijuana users don’t have an increased risk of cancer compared to people who only toke every now and then.
That’s the findings of a report submitted at the annual American Association of Cancer Research this week that includes data from six case-controlled studies between 1999 and 2012.
Dr. Li Rita Zhang from the University of California, Los Angeles, looked at 2,159 lung cancer cases and compared them to 2,985 people without lung cancer. All of the participants took part in International Lung Cancer Consortium studies in the U.S., Canada, the United Kingdom and New Zealand.
Zhang took into account people who also smoked tobacco, separating them from people who only smoked cannabis. That left her with 370 lung cancer patients and about 1,358 patients from the control group. She studied both groups and came up with two major findings: habitual pot smokers didn’t have an increased risk compared to their tobacco-smoking counterparts and when compared to non-smokers, there were no major differences to be found. Some of the subjects were daily smokers of three or more joints and had been for as long as 20 years.
But don’t think Zhang is in favor of cannabis smoking. She declined to comment further on her study to Clinical Psychiatry News, but said the following in the study: “Our results cannot preclude the possibility that cannabis may exhibit an association with lung cancer risk at extremely high dosage over long periods of continued exposure.”
You can read the study abstract here.
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Study Shows Regular Marijuana Use Not Associated with Lung Cancer
Regular marijuana use does not increase one’s chances of developing lung cancer, reported UCLA’s Dr. Li Rita Zhang during the annual meeting of the American Association of Cancer Research.
Dr. Zhang dually analyzed data from six case-control studies conducted from 1999 to 2012 in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and New Zealand, which, when combined, tallied a subject pool of 2,159 lung cancer cases and 2,985 controls.
Dr. Zhang’s examination found that when compared with marijuana smokers who also used tobacco, habitual users (i.e., individuals who smoked one joint a day per year) had no notable increase in cancer risk. There were also no significant differences among marijuana-only smokers.
Pulmonologist and chief medical officer of the Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Fla. Dr. Michael Alberts stated that although other published studies have shown a correlation between smoking marijuana and lung cancer “the conventional wisdom is that cannabis smoking is not as dangerous as cigarette smoking.”
He then argued that while smoking anything is not ideal for the respiratory system, when it came to medical marijuana, the benefits could outweigh the risk, a sentiment supported by multiple studies such as those conducted by the Temple University School of Pharmacy, researchers at Harvard, and the California Pacific Medical Center.
