Smoking will increase the risk of lung cancer, but not all smokers will get lung cancer. Researchers from Iceland, France and the United States published in Nature [Nature 2008,452 (7187): 633; [638] and Nature Genetics (published online on April 2) explain this phenomenon: in addition to smoking and related environmental factors, genetic factors also affect the risk of lung cancer. All three groups of researchers found that the variation of nicotinic acetylcholine receptor gene cluster on the long arm of chromosome 15 affected the risk of lung cancer.

Another study published in the journal Nat Genet (1 1.2) showed that the mutation of TERT and CRR9 genes on chromosome 5 also increased the risk of lung cancer by as much as 60%.

2.KRAS has become the first important molecular marker of targeted therapy for colorectal cancer.

The research published in the annual meeting of American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) this year, such as CRYSTAL, OPUS and EVEREST, and the research published in the New England Journal of Medicine [n Engl J Med 2008,359 (16):1757] show that the mutation of KRAS is obviously related to the efficacy of cetuximab in the treatment of metastatic colorectal cancer. Wild-type patients in KRAS benefited more from cetuximab combined with chemotherapy, while mutant patients could not benefit from combined chemotherapy. There was no significant difference in adverse reactions between wild-type and mutant patients of KRAS. From June 5th, 2008 to October, 2008/kloc-0, the detection of KRAS gene was written into the latest edition of the clinical practice guide for colorectal cancer of National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN).

3. Advanced non-small cell lung cancer: The mutation of epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) in peripheral blood suggests that the targeted therapy is not effective.

Spanish researchers reported at the 2nd Annual Meeting of Cancer Molecular Markers of ASCO-NCI-EORTC that patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer treated with EGFR-targeted drugs, if EGFR gene mutation exists in both blood and tumor tissues, their survival time and prognosis are worse than those with only tumor EGFR mutation. EGFR mutation detection can be used as a noninvasive auxiliary tool for genotyping, and can be used to select patients for individualized treatment with EGFR antagonists.

4. "Decode" cancer genes

For the first time, American scientists discovered 1 0 mutant genes related to the occurrence and progression of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) from cells provided by1patients through whole genome sequencing. These genes have not been discovered by other genes before, and the mutation of tumor suppressor genes is the main one. The researchers suggest adopting similar research methods for other cancer patients, which may achieve results in the pathogenesis of cancer. Related papers were published in Nature (Nature 2008,456: 66).