Scientists from Cancer Research UK have discovered that lung cancers are able to lie dormant for over 20 years before suddenly turning into an aggressive form.

The team studied lung cancers from seven patients, which included people who never smoked, stopped smoking or were still smoking. They discovered that after the initial genetic errors that produce the cancer, it can exist under the radar for several years until new, additional mistakes provoke a rapid growth of the disease.

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In the expansion, there is a sudden gush of various genetic missteps appearing in distinct sections of the tumor. Each separate area evolves and takes different paths, meaning that every part of the tumor is genetically unique

The study, which was jointly funded by the Rosetrees Trust and Cancer Research UK, points out the necessity of better methods to discover the disease earlier. Two-thirds of patients with the illness are diagnosed only when it is at advanced stages, when treatment for the disease is less likely to be effective.

Professor Charles Swanton, from the London Research Institute of Cancer Research UK, UCL Cancer Institute and study author, said that the survival rates from lung cancer are still "devastatingly low," with the disease limitedly affected by many new targeted treatments.

By understanding how it develops, we've opened up the disease's evolutionary rule book in the hope that we can start to predict its next steps," he added.

The study also highlighted the impact of smoking in the evolution of lung cancer. Smoking causes a number of early genetic mistakes. But as the illness develops, the errors became less significant with the majority of missteps now stem from a new method generating mutations inside the tumor managed by a protein called APOBEC.

A number of mistakes found within lung cancers show why the targeted treatments have limited success. Going after a specific genetic fault named by a biopsy in lung cancer will just be effective against the particular area of the tumor with the attributed mistake, leaving other surviving areas to take over.

TagsLung Cancer, Lung cancer drugs, Cancer, Genetics, Cancer treatment, Cancer research