Shortness of breath and respiratory distress often increase the suffering of advanced-stage lung cancer patients. These symptoms can be triggered by pulmonary hypertension, the pulmonary hypertension is due to immune and inflammatory processes triggered by cancer cells. Lung cancer has long since taken on the character of an epidemic: the disease is already responsible for more than a quarter of all cancer deaths, and the trend is rising.
One reason for this is that the prognosis is poor: only one-fifth of patients are still alive five years after diagnosis. This is partly due to the fact that lung cancer is often not recognized until it is in an advanced stage. Another problem is that a variety of different lung cancers exist, each of which requires its own therapeutic concept. Doctors have observed that many patients with progressive lung cancer develop shortness of breath and respiratory distress.
The same symptoms also occur in diseases such as pulmonary arterial hypertension. Scientists measured the diameter of the pulmonary artery of many lung cancer patients using computer tomography. They found thickening of the walls of the pulmonary artery in more than half of the patients. This is a clear indication that these patients also suffer from pulmonary hypertension.
To identify the causes, the lung researchers analyzed three different forms of lung cancer in mice. These were tumour types that grow at different rates and can be experimentally induced in the lungs of mice. All three mouse models showed signs of pulmonary hypertension as tumour growth progressed.
Further experiments showed that the immune cells release various chemical messengers, as is generally observed in inflammatory reactions. Conversely, pulmonary hypertension did not occur when the mice in the experiment lacked functioning immune cells. This is an indication that inflammatory processes triggered by lung cancer may be responsible for pulmonary hypertension.
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