Urine Metabolite Identifies Smokers with Higher Lung Cancer Risk

Filed in archive Diagnostics, Methodologies and Instrumentation on April 27, 2009

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Researchers have identified a metabolite in urine called NNAL that might predict risk of Lung cancer among smokers.

To evaluate the impact of NNAL, researchers identified 246 current smokers who later developed lung cancer and 245 smokers who did not develop lung cancer during the 10-year period following initial interview and collection of urine samples.

Levels of NNAL in the urine were divided into three groups. Compared to those with the lowest levels, patients with a mid-range level of NNAL had a 43 percent increased risk of lung cancer, while those at the highest level had a more than two-fold increased risk of lung cancer after taking into account the effect of number of cigarettes per day, number of years of smoking, and urinary levels of cotinine on lung cancer risk.

These data, collected from 18,244 men enrolled in the Shanghai Cohort Study and 63,257 men and women from the Singapore Chinese Health Study, were presented at the recent American Association for Cancer Research 100th Annual Meeting 2009.

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