Possible Viral Links to Lung Cancer Risk Uncovered

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Among the patients -- all of whom were smokers -- five were found positive for infection with a variety of HPV strains.

The authors said this frequency of infection "supports the assumption that HPV contributes to the development of NSCLC." They point out that HPV is already known to be the cause of all cases of cervical cancer, a vaccine for which has recently become available. It has also recently been implicated as a possible cause for head and neck cancer.

Further studies are planned to look for signs of HPV infection in the respiratory tract of lung cancer patients and to explore the possibility for using HPV infection as a screening indicator for the disease.

In the measles study, Ariad and his team analyzed lung tissue samples taken from 65 Israeli lung cancer patients between the ages of 40 and 84. Ninety percent were smokers, and most were in the early stages of the disease.

The authors found evidence of measles infection in 54 percent of the patients. The likelihood of viral infection, they observed, went up with age.

They concluded that "a possible association" exists between measles and NSCLC.

Dr. Len Lichtenfeld, deputy chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society, described both research efforts as "interesting." But he cautioned that more research needs to be done on each front.

"The question I have for the measles association has to do with vaccination, since in the U.S., at least, we have near universal coverage," he noted. "So although the measles vaccine may lose some of its effectiveness over time, it would be interesting to know if this finding would apply to a country such as ours where most people are vaccinated."

"But I think the HPV study is the more interesting of the two," Lichtenfeld added, "since HPV is obviously already implicated in other cancers. But this is a small study, and it only suggests a possible link to lung cancer without answering a lot of questions. I would like to know, for example, whether patients who are not smokers but who develop lung cancer have a higher rate of HPV. But for now, I would not yet conclude that HPV increases risk, nor would I tie the HPV vaccine to any risk."

More information

For more about lung cancer, visit the American Cancer Society.