Due to smoking 'Virginia Slims' no doubt

Researchers find sex-specific lung cancer genes

Feb. 9, 2010 - WASHINGTON - Lung cancer is often dramatically different in women than it is in men, U.S. researchers reported on Tuesday They looked at genes known to be involved in cancer — epidermal growth factor receptor or EGFR, Ras, STAT3 and others.

"Our study supports two key findings: First, the biology of lung cancer in women is dramatically different from what we see in men," Potti said in a statement.

"Women, in general, have a less complex disease, at least in terms of the numbers of molecular pathways involved. We also discovered that there is a subset of elderly patients would probably benefit from treatments that we've normally reserved for younger patients."

In December British scientists who sequenced all the DNA from lung tumor tissue said they found more than 23,000 mutations.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35321477/ns/health-cancer/