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LONDON -- A test can help doctors determine which lung cancer patients will respond to a leading chemotherapy drug and avoid ineffective treatments and side effects in those who don't, Spanish researchers said on Monday.

They measured the expression of a gene called ERCC1 in tumors from patients with advanced lung cancer to determine who would benefit from the drug cisplatin.

ERCC1 has been linked with resistance to cispaltin.

"This test can predict how to use cisplatin in the treatment of lung cancer," Professor Rafael Rosell of the Catalan Institute of Oncology in Barcelona said in a telephone interview.

"It not only predicts the response to cisplatin but also to other drugs that are combined with cisplatin," he added.

In the study of 444 patients presented at the 31st Congress of the European Society for Medical Oncology in Istanbul, Turkey, Rosell found that the lower the expression of the gene in the tumor the better the response to cisplatin.

"We know that higher response (to the drug) translates into significantly better survival," Rosell added.

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Patients with high levels of ERCC1 would do better with a different combination of chemotherapy drugs, according to the findings.

"We have to move on to customizing treatment," said Rosell.

"Using diagnostic tests you can identify the 20-25 percent of patients with very low levels of expression of certain genes, and this is one of them, who have a better chance of long survival."

Lung cancer is the most common tumor worldwide and the leading cause of death from cancer. Each year 900,000 new cases are diagnosed in men and 330,000 in women, according to the International Agency for Research on Cancer in Lyon, France.

Smoking is a leading cause of cancer in both sexes.

In a separate study presented at the Istanbul conference, Dr Giannis Mountzios of the Institute Gustave-Roussy in Villejuif, France and his team identified molecular markers that are different in lung cancer patients who have never smoked than in sufferers who have.

They said the results suggest that molecular abnormalities could trigger the disease in non-smokers.

Mountzios added that the study provides new insights into the development of lung cancer.

"Although these results are not directly applicable to the clinical setting, they do provide a better understanding of the molecular biology of the disease," he said in a statement.

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