Originally published December 18 2005
New York researchers determine how cancer moves through the body
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Professor David Lyden, of Cornell University in New York, spoke with reporters about research he conducted that has shed light on how cancer spreads through the body.
Scientists have discovered how cancer spreads from a primary site to other places in the body in a finding that could open doors for new ways of treating and preventing advanced disease.
Instead of a cell just breaking off from a tumor and traveling through the bloodstream to another organ where it forms a secondary tumour, or metastasis, researchers in the United States have shown that the cancer sends out envoys to prepare the new site.
Intercepting those envoys, or blocking their action with drugs, might help to prevent the spread of cancer or to treat it in patients in which it has already occurred.
"We are basically looking at all the earlier steps that are involved in metastasis that we weren't previously aware of.
It is complex but we are opening the door to all these things that occur before the tumor cell implants itself," said Professor David Lyden, of Cornell University in New York.
In research reported in the journal Nature, Lyden and his colleagues describe what happens before the arrival of the cancerous cells at the new site.
"The authors show that tumor cells can mobilize normal bone marrow cells, causing them to migrate to particular regions and change the local environment so as to attract and support a developing metastasis," Patricia Steeg, of the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland, said in a commentary.
Cells at the site of the metastasis multiply and produce a protein called fibronectin, which acts like a glue to attract and trap the bone marrow cells to create a landing pad or nest for the cancer cells.
If we can understand all these multiple processes we can develop new drugs that block each step.
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