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This week on Health Watch, we’re talking about new findings in cancer research. While we’d like to think that all people are created equally, genetic differences mean that cancer affects some groups in different ways. For instance, Asian women — whether they live in Asia or in the United States — are more likely to get a certain kind of lung cancer, even if they never smoked. That leads doctors to believe the difference is genetic.
East Asians also respond better than other racial groups to a certain kind of chemotherapy. Researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have used genetic analysis to find out why this might be so. Dr. Adi Gazdar, a UT Southwestern pathologist, says this kind of research can help doctors understand how cancer affects specific groups, and it may help them tailor treatments that will be more effective.
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June 2007
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