Diane-Michel.com

Zheng W, Lee SA.

Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Nashville, TN 37203-1738, USA. wei.zheng@vanderbilt.edu

PMID: 19838915 [PubMed - in process]

Resource:  National Cancer Institute

1.  
   • arsenic (a heavy metal toxin)
   • benzene (a chemical found in gasoline)
   • beryllium (a toxic metal)
   • cadmium (a metal used in batteries)
   • chromium (a metallic element)
   • ethylene oxide (a chemical used to sterilize medical devices)
   • nickel (a metallic element)
   • polonium–210 (a chemical element that gives off radiation)
   • vinyl chloride (a toxic substance used in plastics manufacture)
2. What is secondhand smoke?
3. How is secondhand smoke exposure measured?
4. Does secondhand smoke contain harmful chemicals?
5. Does exposure to secondhand smoke cause cancer?
6. What are the other health effects of exposure to secondhand smoke?
7. What is a safe level of secondhand smoke?
8. What is being done to reduce nonsmokers’ exposure to secondhand smoke?

Secondhand smoke (also called environmental tobacco smoke) is the combination of sidestream smoke (the smoke given off by the burning end of a tobacco product) and mainstream smoke (the smoke exhaled by the smoker) (1, 2, 3, 4). Exposure to secondhand smoke is also called involuntary smoking or passive smoking. People are exposed to secondhand smoke in homes, cars, the workplace, and public places such as bars, restaurants, and other recreation settings. In the United States, the source of most secondhand smoke is from cigarettes, followed by pipes, cigars, and other tobacco products (4).

 Secondhand smoke is measured by testing indoor air for nicotine or other smoke constituents. Exposure to secondhand smoke can be tested by measuring the levels of cotinine (a nicotine by-product in the body) in the nonsmoker’s blood, saliva, or urine (1). Nicotine, cotinine, carbon monoxide, and other evidence of secondhand smoke exposure have been found in the body fluids of nonsmokers exposed to secondhand smoke.

Yes. Of the more than 4,000 chemicals that have been identified in secondhand tobacco smoke, at least 250 are known to be harmful, and 50 of these are known to cause cancer. These chemicals include (1):

Many factors affect which chemicals are found in secondhand smoke, including the type of tobacco, the chemicals added to the tobacco, the way the product is smoked, and the paper in which the tobacco is wrapped (1, 3, 4).

 

Yes. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the U.S. National Toxicology Program (NTP), the U.S. Surgeon General, and the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) have classified secondhand smoke as a known human carcinogen (cancer-causing agent) (1, 3, 5).

Inhaling secondhand smoke causes lung cancer in nonsmoking adults (4). Approximately 3,000 lung cancer deaths occur each year among adult nonsmokers in the United States as a result of exposure to secondhand smoke (2). The Surgeon General estimates that living with a smoker increases a nonsmoker’s chances of developing lung cancer by 20 to 30 percent (4).

Some research suggests that secondhand smoke may increase the risk of breast cancer, nasal sinus cavity cancer, and nasopharyngeal cancer in adults, and leukemia, lymphoma, and brain tumors in children (4). Additional research is needed to learn whether a link exists between secondhand smoke exposure and these cancers.

Secondhand smoke causes disease and premature death in nonsmoking adults and children (4). Exposure to secondhand smoke irritates the airways and has immediate harmful effects on a person’s heart and blood vessels. It may increase the risk of heart disease by an estimated 25 to 30 percent (4). In the United States, secondhand smoke is thought to cause about 46,000 heart disease deaths each year (6). There may also be a link between exposure to secondhand smoke and the risk of stroke and hardening of the arteries; however, additional research is needed to confirm this link.

Children exposed to secondhand smoke are at an increased risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), ear infections, colds, pneumonia, bronchitis, and more severe asthma. Being exposed to secondhand smoke slows the growth of children’s lungs and can cause them to cough, wheeze, and feel breathless (4).

There is no safe level of exposure to secondhand smoke. Studies have shown that even low levels of secondhand smoke exposure can be harmful. The only way to fully protect nonsmokers from secondhand smoke exposure is to completely eliminate smoking in indoor spaces. Separating smokers from nonsmokers, cleaning the air, and ventilating buildings cannot completely eliminate secondhand smoke exposure (4).

Many state and local governments have passed laws prohibiting smoking in public facilities such as schools, hospitals, airports, and bus terminals. Increasingly, state and local governments are also requiring private workplaces, including restaurants and bars, to be smoke free. To highlight the significant risk from secondhand smoke exposure, the National Cancer Institute, a component of the National Institutes of Health, holds meetings and conferences in states, counties, cities, or towns that are smoke free, unless certain circumstances justify an exception to this policy.

More information about state-level tobacco regulations is available through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) State Tobacco Activities Tracking and Evaluation (STATE) System Web site. The STATE System is a database containing up-to-date and historical state-level data on tobacco use prevention and control. This resource is available at http://apps.nccd.cdc.gov/statesystem/ on the Internet.

On the national level, several laws restricting smoking in public places have been passed. Federal law bans smoking on domestic airline flights, nearly all flights between the United States and foreign destinations, interstate buses, and most trains. Smoking is also banned in most Federally owned buildings. The Pro-Children Act of 1994 prohibits smoking in facilities that routinely provide Federally funded services to children.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) Healthy People 2010, a comprehensive, nationwide health promotion and disease prevention agenda, includes the goal of reducing the proportion of nonsmokers exposed to secondhand smoke from 65 percent to 45 percent by 2010 (7). More information about this program is available on the Healthy People 2010 Web site at http://www.healthypeople.gov/ on the Internet.

Internationally, several nations, including France, Ireland, New Zealand, Norway, and Uruguay, require all workplaces, including bars and restaurants, to be smoke free.

Selected References

1. National Toxicology Program. Report on Carcinogens. Eleventh Edition. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service, National Toxicology Program, 2005. 
2. National Cancer Institute. Cancer Progress Report 2003. Public Health Service, National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2004. 
3. International Agency for Research on Cancer. Tobacco Smoke and Involuntary Smoking. Lyon, France: 2002. 
4. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The Health Consequences of Involuntary Exposure to Tobacco Smoke: A Report of the Surgeon General. Rockville, MD: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Coordinating Center for Health Promotion, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Office on Smoking and Health, 2006. 
5. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Respiratory Health Effects of Passive Smoking (Also Known as Exposure to Secondhand Smoke or Environmental Tobacco Smoke–ETS). U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 1992. 
6. California Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment. Proposed Identification of Environmental Tobacco Smoke as a Toxic Air Contaminant: Part B Health Effects, 2005. 
7. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Healthy People 2010: Understanding and Improving Health. 2nd ed. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2000. 

Related NCI materials and Web pages:

• National Cancer Institute Fact Sheet 10.16, Questions and Answers About Cigar Smoking and Cancer
  (http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Tobacco/cigars)
• National Cancer Institute Fact Sheet 10.19, Quitting Smoking: Why To Quit and How To Get Help
  (http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Tobacco/cessation)
• Smoking and Tobacco Control Monograph 10: Health Effects of Exposure to Environmental Tobacco Smoke
  (http://cancercontrol.cancer.gov/tcrb/monographs/10/index.html)
• NCI’s Smoking and Cancer Home Page
  (http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/smoking)

For more help, contact:

NCI’s Cancer Information Service
Telephone (toll-free): 1–800–4–CANCER (1–800–422–6237)
TTY (toll-free): 1–800–332–8615
LiveHelp^® online chat: https://cissecure.nci.nih.gov/livehelp/welcome.asp

Reference:

National Cancer Institute (2009). Secondhand smoke questions and answers.  Retrieved November 2, 2009 from http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Tobacco/ETS

Resource: Geoffrey Bene Cancer Research Center

“The GEOFFREY BEENE CANCER RESEARCH CENTER AT MEMORIAL SLOAN-KETTERING CANCER CENTER was established in 2006. The total value of combined Geoffrey Beene donations exceed $106,000,000.

G. Thompson Hutton, the Trustee of the Geoffrey Beene Foundation and President of Geoffrey Beene, LLC, has orchestrated the activities to build and support this ambitious research initiative. “The hallmark of the GEOFFREY BEENE CANCER RESEARCH CENTER AT MEMORIAL SLOAN-KETTERING CANCER CENTER is its focus on revolutionary new research approaches across a variety of cancers, strategies that will lead to prevention through improved diagnostics and enhanced quality of life treatments toward the ultimate goal of making cancer a more manageable and perhaps one day, a curable disease.”

Since its creation, the Geoffrey Beene Cancer Research Center has served as the focal point for an array of projects, aimed at translating works at the cellular level into revolutionary new research approaches to preventing, diagnosing, and treating the disease. It brings together researchers and physicians from two complementary areas: the Cancer Biology and Genetics Program, based in the Sloan-Kettering Institute (SKI), which studies the genetic and biochemical events that trigger the transformation of normal cells into cancerous ones, and the Memorial Hospital-based Human Oncology and Pathogenesis Program, which pursues new insights into the molecular mechanisms of cancer from the perspective of clinical oncology.

“The Geoffrey Beene Cancer Research Center has helped galvanize our efforts to gain new insights into cancer and to apply that knowledge to the development of more effective strategies for patient care,” said Harold Varmus, President of MSKCC. “We are especially grateful to Tom Hutton and his colleagues at Geoffrey Beene, LLC for recognizing the significance of the work being done here.”

The funds from Geoffrey Beene support advanced new research initiatives spanning the entire range of translational research, funding core research labs, the establishment of senior and junior faculty chairs, graduate fellowships, and the annual Geoffrey Beene Symposium.

The Center provides support for the Geoffrey Beene Translational Oncology Core, directed by Dr. Charles Sawyers. The core performs genomic analyses of clinical material by applying state of the art genome-scale molecular profiling technologies.

The Center also provides support for the Microchemistry and Proteomics Core Facility and Genomics Core Facility aimed at significantly augmenting Memorial Sloan-Kettering’s capacity for translational cancer research in genomics.

Nine research grants were funded in the first year of the Geoffrey Beene Cancer Research Center. In 2008 an additional ten research grants were funded as well as three proposals for shared resources.

Since the inception of the Center, Johanna Joyce, PhD, and Andrea Ventura, MD/PhD, Assistant Members in the Cancer Biology and Genetics Program, and Ross Levine, MD, Assistant Member in the Human Oncology and Pathogenesis Program, have been appointed Geoffrey Beene Junior Faculty Chairs. Hyung-Song Nam, an MD/PhD student, and Sindy Escobar-Alvarez, a PhD student, were named the first Geoffrey Beene graduate fellows in 2007. The second Geoffrey Beene Graduate Fellowships in 2008 were awarded to two PhD students, Vasilena Gocheva and Barry S. Taylor.”

Oversight of the Geoffrey Beene Cancer Research Center is provided by the following members of its Executive Committee:

Resource: University of Cambridge

  Scientists have located a region of DNA which – when altered – can increase the risk of ovarian cancer, according to research published in Nature Genetics over the weekend.

An international research group led by scientists based at the Cancer Research UK Genetic Epidemiology Unit at the University of Cambridge and UCL (University College London) searched through the genomes of 1,810 women with ovarian cancer and 2,535 women without the disease from across the UK. They analysed 2.5 million variations in DNA base pairs – the letters which spell out the genetic code – to identify common spelling ‘errors’ linked to ovarian cancer risk.

The scientists identified the genetic ‘letters’- called single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) – which when spelt slightly differently increase ovarian cancer risk in some women. This is the first time scientists have found a SNP linked uniquely to risk of ovarian cancer and is the result of eight years of investigations. With the help of the international Ovarian Cancer Association Consortium (OCAC), they then looked at more than 7,000 additional women with ovarian cancer and 10,000 women without disease from around the world to confirm this finding.

The region of risk DNA is located on chromosome nine (there are 23 pairs of each chromosome in humans, one of each pair inherited from each parent). The scientists estimate that there is a 40 per cent increase in lifetime risk for women carrying the DNA variation on both copies of chromosome nine compared with someone who doesn’t carry it on either chromosome. The risk for women carrying the variation on both chromosomes is 14 in 1000 – compared with ten in 1000.

Approximately 15 per cent of women in the UK population carry two copies of the variant DNA.

The lifetime risk for a woman carrying the DNA variant on one copy of the chromosome is increased by 20 per cent from ten in 1000 to 12 in 1000. Approximately 40 per cent of women in the UK carry one copy.

Lead author, Professor Dr Paul Pharoah, a Cancer Research UK senior research fellow at the University of Cambridge, said: “We already know that people with mistakes in the BRCA1 and BRAC2 genes have a greater risk of ovarian cancer – but on their own they don’t account for all of the inherited risk of the disease.
“It is likely that the remaining risk is due to a combination of several unidentified genes – which individually carry a low to moderate risk. Now we have ticked one off, the hunt is on to find the rest.”

Senior author Dr Simon Gayther, whose work is supported by Cancer Research UK and The Eve Appeal charity which fundraises for the gynaecological cancer research team based at UCL, said: “The human DNA blueprint contains more than 10 million genetic variants. These are part and parcel of our characteristics and make-up – but a handful will also increase the chances of some women getting ovarian cancer and we have found the first one of these.

“There is now a genuine hope that as we find more, we can start to identify the women at greatest risk and this could help doctors to diagnose the disease earlier when treatment has a better chance of being successful.”

Ovarian cancer is the fifth most common cancer in women in the UK with around 6,800 new cases diagnosed each year in the UK – 130 women every week. It is the fourth most common cause of cancer death in women in the UK with around 4,300 deaths from the disease in the UK each year.

BRCA1 and BRCA2 are high risk genes which cause breast cancer and are already known to significantly increase the risk of ovarian cancer but faults in these genes are rare and probably cause less than five per cent of all cases of ovarian cancer.

Reference:
University of Cambridge. (August 3, 2009) Genetic link to increased risk of ovarian cancer found. Retrieved August 4, 2009 from http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/news/dp/2009080301

Resource:  National Cancer Institute – Cancer Biomedical Informatics Grid

caBIG™ stands for the cancer Biomedical Informatics Grid™. caBIG™ is an information network enabling all constituencies in the cancer community – researchers, physicians, and patients – to share data and knowledge.  The components of caBIG™ are widely applicable beyond cancer as well.

The mission of caBIG™ is to develop a truly collaborative information network that accelerates the discovery of new approaches for the detection, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of cancer, ultimately improving patient outcomes.

The goals of caBIG™ are to:

• Connect scientists and practitioners through a shareable and interoperable infrastructure
• Develop standard rules and a common language to more easily share information
• Build or adapt tools for collecting, analyzing, integrating, and disseminating information associated with cancer research and care.

Since its inception, caBIG™ has committed to the following cornerstones:

• Federated: caBIG™ software and resources are widely distributed, interlinked, and available to everyone in the cancer research community, but institutions maintain local control over their own resources and data.
• Open-development: caBIG™ tools and infrastructure are being developed through an open, participatory process. caBIG™ leverages existing resources whenever possible, rather than building new tools in every case.
• Open-access:caBIG™ resources are freely obtainable by the cancer community to ensure broad data-sharing and collaboration.
• Open-source: The caBIG™ source code is available to view, alter, and redistribute.

Learn concepts and terminology critical for working with caBIG™

• “caBIG™ Essentials” Overview   (interactive, uses Adobe Flash)
  Introduces important terminology, key concepts, and describes different ways of connecting with caBIG™.
  • Alternative format:   “caBIG™ Essentials” Overview Slides
• caBIG™ Core Concepts
  There are a number of vital concepts to both understand and connect with caBIG™. They are introduced briefly here.
• How It Works
  Describes how caBIG™ is organized and operates.
• caBIG™ Primer
  Complete high-level overview of the program’s vision and mission, organization, activities, and challenges.

Look up acronyms and unfamiliar terms

• Visit the glossary: The Glossary of Acronyms and Terms has definitions for caBIG™ acronyms and common bioinformatics terms.
• View definitions as you read:. Terms in the glossary are underlined with blue dots. Roll your mouse over the term and it’s definition will show. E.g., rest your mouse on this term – Domain Analysis Model

Stand Up To Cancer

has announced an innovative approach to research designed to bring together the best and brightest investigators from leading institutions around the world. This unique initiative, which will foster scientific collaboration and accelerate the discovery of new therapies, will be administered by the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) under the direction of a Scientific Advisory Committee led by Nobel Laureate Phillip A. Sharp, Ph.D., Institute Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT.

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