Could a New Cancer Pill Stop The Disease Spreading?

Breaking news of an exciting scientific breakthrough could be about to rock the world of cancer treatment. Cancer Research UK has indicated that findings from Austrian researchers could show that the scientific community is heading in the right direction to make just such a discovery. Described as ‘tantalising’, the breakthrough could see the development of a pill that helps the body’s own immune system to kill off the cancer cells in a tumour.

 

The researchers say that they are holding on to the hope of this ‘holy grail’ of all cancer treatments. They have now identified a Cbi-b molecule, which effectively stops tumour metastasis, meaning the spreading of cancer from any organ to the adjacent part. Tumour metastasis is the main reason that people die from cancer, as the disease spreads throughout the body and damages internal organs, causing them to fail.

 

Using this information, the scientists are hoping to develop a pill that wakes up the immune system’s TAM-receptors and makes them kill the cancer cells. Professor Josef Penninger of the Vienna Austrian Academy of Sciences said that the results that have been discovered hold the promise that it may in fact be possible to develop TAM inhibitors or Cbi-b to empower the body’s own immune system to kill the metastases of cancer.

 

More research is needed to be done, however, to advance the findings in this field, and also to test for any possible side effects.

 

The immune system is a powerful tool in the process because its main job is to identify and fight harmful invasions to the body. It does, in fact, have the ability to kill of tumours but is currently held back by so-called molecular ‘brakes’. The study has effectively found a way to take the foot off one of those brakes, potentially allowing the immune system to swoop in and do its job.

Categories: body, cancer, cancer cells, immune, nbsp, Pill, tumour, tumour metastasis

The Approach That is Killing Cancer Tumours Faster Than Ever

US researchers have found that the wellness and wellbeing of cancer patients could be improved by using so-called cancer ‘monorails’ which are used to kill off tumours by luring them towards toxic pits or into areas of the body on which they can safely operate.

 

Cancer is one of the biggest health concerns facing people of all ages in every country around the world, and so this breakthrough research could have very significant repercussions.

 

The team of researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology has designed something called nanofibres, which are thinner than human hair and which cancers ‘choose’ to travel along. Studies carried out on animals so far have shown that tumour sizes can be reduced significantly by tricking cancer cells into migrating into these monorail-type fibres.

 

Leading cancer charity, Cancer Research UK, said that the idea of doing this was very fascinating, but cautioned that it was still early days in terms of the research.

 

The team that is working on this technique is working specifically with the most difficult types of brain cancer to treat, something called glioblastomas, which spread inside the brain and are often fatal. As these cancerous cells spread, they travel down blood vessels and nerves and end up invading the whole of the brain.

 

The nanofibre technology that the group is looking into mimics the channels that these types of cancerous cells use to move around the brain. The cancer cells normally latch on to these types of ‘monorail’ structures, and then move around the brain. The hope is that by providing alternative, attractive fibres, the tumours could be efficiently moved to different destinations, chosen by the treatment provider.

 

According to studies done on tests in a Petri dish, there are various types of cancers which can ride along this type of ‘monorail’ system.

Categories: Brain, cancer, cancer cells, cancerous cells, cells, monorail, nbsp, tumour, types

Radioactive Bacteria Can Deal With Cancer in Mice

Pancreatic cancer is known to be very deadly because it has a tendency to spread, or metastasis, to other parts of the body before the symptoms of the disease appear. In previous work in mice, Claudia Gravekamp of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York has been able to show that weakened listeria bacteria fight against tumour tissue but not healthy tissue. Further to that, the bacteria seem to home in on the metastatic tumours.

To take advantage of this and make the most of the opportunity to do some damage to cancer, her team have now armed the bacteria with a radioactive payload – attaching the isotope rhenium-188 to the listeria with a form of antibody.

They gave mice different degrees of human pancreatic tumours and then injected them every day with the powered-up bacteria for a week, giving them a week off before four more days of treatment injections. A few days later, there were on average 90 per cent fewer of the tumours in this group than there were in untreated mice, and the average weights of original pancreatic tumours had decreased by 64 per cent.

After a week, the animals’ livers and kidneys had completely cleared themselves of the radioactive bacteria from their systems, with no damage to either organ. This was a very important aspect of study as there would be no use treating the cancer only to poison the body with something else.

Gravekamp believes that the radiation affected the metastatic tumours most because cells there were still rapidly multiplying, leaving their chromosomes more vulnerable to damage than those in healthy tissues or in the original tumour. The bacteria also play a part by producing reactive oxygen molecules that again damage the tumour’s DNA.

Google+
Radioactive Bacteria Can Deal With Cancer in Mice

Categories: Bacteria, cancer, metastatic tumours, Mice, pancreatic tumours, radioactive, radioactive bacteria, tumour, tumours

Drug Combined with Chemo Offers Hope for Breast Cancer

cancer-female/">Breast cancer patients whose tumours have been treated by chemotherapy but remain too large to be removed by surgery have been offered new hope. Doctors at Singapore’s National Cancer Institute say taking the drug sunitinib a week before chemotherapy begins can shrink the tumour sufficiently so that it could be safely removed by surgery.

The Singapore doctors carried out a trial using 24 patients that revealed this new combination of treatment was able to shrink tumours by a quarter after just one cycle of chemotherapy. The tumours in those patients who only received chemotherapy saw minimal reduction after one cycle of chemo – it can take up to four treatments and often include radiotherapy too to reduce a tumour sufficiently for surgery.

All the patients taking part in the study, which began in 2010, had advanced cancer-female/">breast cancer, their tumours on average measuring 8cm.

Sunitinib is more typically used to treat renal or kidney cancer but, along with cancer-female/">breast cancer, it is being considered for use to combat melanoma, cancer/">bladder cancer and mesothelioma. The drug works to destroy the vessels that supply blood to cancerous tumours and blood cells and when combined with chemotherapy, it makes for a more effective way of reducing a tumour.

The Singapore study involved giving patients a daily dose of 12.5mg of sunitinib one week before chemo. Of those patients who followed that drug regimen, 9% showed no traces of cancer after four cycles of chemo. There was no replication of those results in any of the patients who only had four cycles of chemo.

With the tumour drastically reduced in size, the chances of successful surgery to remove the cancerous growth are much higher.

The Singapore team presented the results of their study at the American Society of Clinical Oncology in 2012.

While sunitinib is known to work successfully in reducing cancerous growths, the drug does have known side effects, such as nausea and diarrhoea. However, the Singapore team reported that their patients did not typically present with those side effects.

More clinical trials into the drug’s effectiveness in treating cancer-female/">breast cancer are now planned, both in Singapore and elsewhere.

Google+

Categories: breast cancer, Drug, tumour

New Way of Analysing Cancer Tumours Hailed as Breakthrough

A new method for analysing cancerous tumours could potentially lead to more accurate cancer treatment while allowing doctors to understand the disease better.

A team of researchers in Singapore have come up with a way to magnifying small populations of cells so that it is easier to see any changes in them, describing this new method as being similar to having a more powerful microscope.

Until now, clinicians examining tumours and parts of the body made up of rare cells have not been able to analyse them fully because they are made up of only a few cells. Now instead of needing millions of cells for full analysis, the method devised by the Agency for Science, Technology and Research’s Genome Institute of Singapore only needs several thousand cells for accurate analysis and observation of any changes.

Clinicians will be able to identify epigenetic changes, caused when chemical compounds modify the genome. These DNA changes, part of a field known as epigenomics, can be more closely examined using the method devised by the Singapore team.

The team used mouse germ cells, which can become sperm and eggs, to test their method and the success of their discovery was published in the journal Developmental Cell. Their method has been hailed as opening up a new frontier in biological research and a Singapore biotechnology firm has been given the license to develop the method for worldwide use.

 

Google+
New Way of Analysing Cancer Tumours Hailed as Breakthrough

Categories: analysis, cancer, tumour