(Yicai Global) June 27 -- Chinese scientists have discovered an enzyme that may prohibit lung cancer from creating secondary malignant tumors.

Researchers from the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics and the Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, both under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, found out that UDP-glucose 6-dehydrogenase impairs lung cancer metastasis, science journal Nature said in a report published yesterday.

Metastasis is involved in 95 percent of all cancer-related deaths, the report said. China has over 730,000 new lung cancer cases each year, and the five-year survival rate is 16 percent. The nation is the largest tobacco-consuming and manufacturing country in the world.

The study is a breakthrough in beginning to understand how lung cancer spreads. Previous research has pointed out the significance of abnormal cellular metabolisms in the human body as cancer cells proliferate but little is known about what catalyzes their growth.

Editor: Emmi Laine