Inflammation Identified as Key Driver in Early Lung Cancer Development
Houston, TX – November 6, 2025 – A groundbreaking study from the University of texas MD Anderson Cancer Center suggests that inflammation plays a critical, perhaps causative role in the very earliest stages of lung cancer development. Published today in Cancer Cell, the research details a complete cellular mapping of lung tissue, revealing a strong link between inflammatory processes and the emergence of precancerous cells.
Researchers utilized advanced spatial transcriptomic profiling - a technique that identifies gene expression patterns within tissues – to analyze 56 human precancerous lesions and samples from 25 patients wiht advanced lung cancer. This analysis, expanded and validated with an additional 36 lesions from 19 patients, encompassed over 5.4 million cells and identified more than 480,000 distinct areas of gene expression.
The team discovered that the initial cells capable of developing into lung cancer consistently resided within areas exhibiting intense inflammation, surrounded by cells actively promoting inflammatory responses. This observation suggests inflammation isn’t merely a result of tumor growth, but a potential initiating factor.
Further bolstering this hypothesis, experiments demonstrated that neutralizing the inflammatory molecule IL-1B significantly reduced the number of these precursor cells. This finding indicates that targeting and controlling inflammation could potentially halt lung cancer development in it’s earliest phases.
“Our analysis allowed us to clearly distinguish between precursor cells and those that had progressed to tumors,” explained researchers. “We observed that inflammatory patterns were more pronounced and widespread in the early stages of cancer,and these patterns were replicated in laboratory models.”
The study’s findings open avenues for novel preventative strategies, especially for individuals at high risk of lung cancer. Integrating inflammation control into existing immunotherapy treatments could represent a powerful new approach to cancer prevention. This research offers a fresh perspective on a disease that remains the leading cause of cancer-related deaths globally.
(Image Caption: Super-pixel resolution spatial transcriptomic analysis of a precancerous human lung lesion (delineated by a dotted red line), where colors represent different spatially mapped genetic programs. Image provided by Dr.Humam Kadara, specialist in translational molecular pathology at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.)
