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Lung cancer kills more than 1 million people every year.  Adenocarcinoma is the most prevalent form of lung cancer and accounts for about 35% of all lung cancer cases.  This type of cancer can only be cured by removing the tumor, either via surgery or radiation therapy.   However, it is often diagnosed once the cancer has progressed to far.  The survival rate is only about 17% after 5 years.

Recently, scientists have uncovered more than 2 dozen genes that are linked with this type of cancer.  This type of research can assist in developing custom therapies to aid in fighting the disease.

This project is the largest federally funded project of its type.  Scientists at nearly a dozen institutions from the U.S. and Germany have determined the DNA sequence of 623 genes in 188 adenocarcinoma tumor samples.  After gathering the samples they compared the DNA to the same genes in health tissues from the same patients.  They searched for the genes that mutated more often than others.  They determined that the changes in the genes only occur in the tumor and are not found other places in the body and are not inherited.Scientists discovered 1,000 different mutations and found 26 genes that mutated more frequently than others. Many of these genes had never been linked directly with lung cancer.  Many of the genes had been linked to other types of cancer such as; colon cancer, leukemia, and lymphoma.  These finding more than double the known number of genes that play a role in this type of lung cancer.  Prior to the research only 10 genes had been identified and included 6 of the 26 from the study.

Most of the mutated genes share common biological gene networks.  More than 70% of the cancerous lung tumors contained a gene affecting the mitogen-activated protein kinase or MAPK pathway.

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