Killing Cancer

Chemotherapy can make a patient of an advanced non-small cell lung cancer, can, according to the statistics, live few time more than one patient who is not trying chemotherapy. But although chemotherapy seems the only way to alleviate the grief caused by lung cancer, there is actually another way. 

There is a drug called Erlotinib (Tarceva®) which attacks the cells that proliferate due to the cancer inside the lungs. It, according to a clinic study, “targets a protein called the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR).” The EGFR causes cells to divide, and to eventually create tumors; That is, Erlotinib attacks directly to the source of creation of tumors, and consequently, attacks the protein that is found at high levels in patients with lung cancer.

A study conducted to test the drug was carried and the results were encouraging for long-time smokers. Between August 2001 and January 2003, scientists took round 700 people with advanced NSCLC (non-small cell lung cancer), who were randomly given half of them the new drug and the other half placebos. Ming-Sound Tsao, M.D. of the University of Toronto in Ontario lead the research, and concluded that patients who took the drug showed a 6.7 months survival probability, meanwhile patients who did not showed a 4 months survival chance.

It seems like this is the drug smokers would apply to buy when their cancer gets worse, but is this something all nice and sweet? Would smokers buy this drug?

More Information

 Media coverage: Youtube

Clinic Article

The drug: Erlotinib

Smokers miss more work than nonsmokers

For decades, It has been shown in countless studies the damage produced by cigarette smoking. For instance, cigarettes increase stomach inflammation, ulcers and gastritis. However, there is a study that shows something that I am pretty sure you are not aware of. A report published by the magazine “Addiciton” revealed that smokers miss work two to three days more per year than non-smokers. Only in the UK this issue has cost nearly 400 million pounds thousand, one thousand 700 million euros a year.

The data comes from a review of 29 independent studies conducted between 1960 and 2011 in Europe, Australia, New Zealand, United States and Japan, with a total of more than 71,000 public sector workers and private. The authors of the report, members of the University of Nottingham (UK), focused on the smoking habits of workers, and analyzed the frequency with which these were absent in the last two years. Smokers were 33% more likely to miss work than nonsmokers, and they missed an average of 2.7 working days per year, as explained Jo Leonardi-Bee, author of the report. They also calculated that current smokers were 19% more likely to miss work than former smokers, so encourage them to leave the snuff may also cause "considerable cost savings for workers."

In addition, the study has also shown that children who live with smokers are also more likely to miss school. A passive smoking has been associated with increased susceptibility to the development of various diseases, from asthma to heart attacks, which makes workers must miss work more often to stay home with their sick.

In my case, I stopped smoking three months ago and I feel better now. It is hard but not impossible. In this video there are some smoking effects. Are you aware of those effects? Do you think that smoking is related with missing hours of work?