September 2010 podcast transcript

This month, genetic markers could help doctors assess if a patient’s melanoma will respond to chemotherapy, researchers are developing a breath test that could detect lung, breast, bowel and prostate cancers, the number of teen smokers has dropped since selling cigarettes to under 18s became illegal, and we discuss threats to legislation to protect young people from tobacco marketing.

Cancer Research UK scientists from Leeds have found an important link between DNA repair genes and response to chemotherapy for melanomas – the most dangerous form of skin cancer.

Led by Professor Julia Newton-Bishop, the team found that tumours with the highest DNA repair gene activity were least likely to respond to treatment. The research was the largest of its kind and looked at hundreds of cancer-related genes in the tumours of nearly 500 skin cancer patients.

The discovery could potentially help doctors decide on the most effective treatment for skin cancer patients in the future.

Science Information Manager Dr Kat Arney explains the impact this finding could have on patients’ treatment.

“If it’s caught early, melanoma is relatively easy to treat with surgery. But once it’s started spreading, then treatment is more difficult. Only around one or two in ten patients with aggressive melanoma respond to chemotherapy, but at the moment we can’t tell who will benefit.

If the results from this research could feed into the development of a test to help doctors predict which patients are most likely to benefit from chemo, then it would help to get the right treatment to the right patients quickly, and avoid giving drugs that can cause unpleasant side effects to patients that probably wouldn’t be helped by them.”

And there’s more about that story on our Science Update blog.

A very early trial has shown that electronic sensors can tell the difference between the breath of healthy people and patients who have cancer.

The research – published in the British Journal of Cancer – also found that the sensors could tell whether the cancer was lung, breast, bowel or prostate .

Although this research is only preliminary, it could lead to the development of a cheap and easy to use test to help diagnose cancer patients early.

Cancer Research UK spokesperson Dr Julie Sharp explains more.

“This is a really early-days study. They were doing these investigations in the lab with around 170 volunteers. So the next stage will be to see if this can work on a larger scale, and if it could be really reliable.

Obviously, if they could develop this into a test it would be ideal, because it’s very simple, it’s very quick, and it’s not at all painful for the patient. So it would be a very quick way of actually diagnosing cancer.

Early detection is really important, but they’ve got a lot more to do to prove that it’s actually going to work in practice.”

The number of 16 and 17 year old smokers has dropped by seven per cent since it became illegal to sell cigarettes to under-18s.

In the first study of its kind, Cancer Research UK scientists interviewed more than a thousand 16 to 17 year olds before and after the change in the law.

The research showed that the legislation is having an impact on the number of young people who smoke, and seems to be helping more to kick the habit.

But Cancer Research UK is concerned that new ways to protect young people from the risks of smoking are under threat if the government fails to put measures in place to put tobacco out of sight in shops and remove vending machines.

Paul Thorne spoke to Robin Hewings, tobacco policy manager at Cancer Research UK, to find out more about our Out of Sight, Out of Mind campaign, and the impact that it could have on protecting youngsters from smoking.

“This was a campaign that we’ve been running for the past couple of years and it’s been really successful and well-supported by people who are involved with Cancer Research UK.

Fifty thousand people signed a petition to do three things – the first was to remove displays of tobacco from shops, because they act like big adverts for tobacco in places that teenagers often go to. The second thing was to call on the government to end tobacco vending machines, - they’re the easiest way for children to get tobacco, because there’s no face-to-face encounter.

And finally, we wanted them to have a very serious examination of the case for having standardised packaging of tobacco. So rather than having those well-known, iconic brands that we known teenagers really like and buy into, that they should instead all be the same, so there’s no difference between them.

In a number of countries such as Canada, Iceland and Ireland they’ve removed displays of tobacco in shops, which has been quite successful. There’s haven’t particularly been any ill effects. There’s been good evaluations of their effects, particularly in Ireland, which is a very similar type of country to the UK. A number of places have removed cigarette vending machines. And Australia will be introducing standardised packaging next year.

The campaign was really successful. We were very important in persuading the last government and parliament to pass the Health Act 2009, which ended tobacco displays in shops and cigarette vending machines. And the new government, which has responsibility to decide whether to implement it, is looking at it.

We’re working hard to persuade them to take these measures forward, and a lot of our supporters have been really, really helpful in lobbying their local MPs and writing to their local media. And we’re very optimistic that the new government will implement these measures. The final thing is that we know that the new government is looking very seriously at plain packaging as well.”

That was Robin Hewings talking to our reporter Paul Thorne. You can find out more about our campaign, and how you can get involved, on our Cancer Campaigns website.

We’ll be back next month with all the latest cancer news. In the meantime, you can follow us on Twitter.