Lung cancer can lie dormant for over two decades

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Lung cancer can lie dormant for over two decades

A study has revealed that lung cancers canlie dormant for over 20 years before suddenly turning into an aggressive form of the disease. The first genetic mistakes that cause the cancer can exist undetected for many years until new, additional, faults trigger rapid growth of the disease. Many of the early genetic faults are caused by smoking. But as the disease evolved these became less important with the majority of faults caused by a new process generating mutations within the tumour controlled by a protein called APOBEC. The wide variety of faults found within lung cancers explains why targeted treatments have had limited success.Attacking a particular genetic mistake identified by a biopsy in lung cancer will only be effective against those parts of the tumour with that fault, leaving other areas to thrive and take over.