Cancer News

Here is one reason why so many cancer patients fail therapy--the therapies are making the cancer spread faster!

"We wondered then if TGF-beta induced by anti-cancer therapies can serve as a survival signal for tumor cells, thus allowing them to withstand therapy and later recur," said Arteaga, professor of Medicine and Cancer Biology and director of the Vanderbilt-Ingram Breast Cancer Program.

This appears to be the case, he said. Radiation therapy and the chemotherapeutic agents doxorubicin and docetaxel all increased TGF-beta levels and accelerated metastasis, an effect that was blocked by neutralizing antibodies directed against TGF-beta.

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Many new cancer drugs target cell signaling receptor proteins. Learning how these receptors are modified by complex sugar attachments can make the new drugs even more effective.

Most of the important proteins that decorate the outside of human cells have complex sugars attached to them. Researchers at the Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute have known that changes in these sugars are often associated with diseases such as cancer, diabetes and autoimmune diseases such as Multiple Sclerosis.

"Our research shows that the sugar composition of these receptor proteins controlled the amount of time the protein was available to interact with the external messages, in effect, changing the likelihood that a receptor could be activated," states Dr. Dennis. "This explains how cells can adapt in their nutrient environment. However, when this normal adaptation becomes imbalanced, cancer cells can grow and promote metastasis."

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HPV vaccine marks the beginning of another approach to cancer. In Australia, a national program to vaccinate girls is underway,to prevent cervical cancer. In San Francisco, gay and bisexual men are beginning to take the vaccine in an attempt to prevent some penile and anal cancers.

Besides the huge loss of life, disruption in lives, and huge medical costs associated with cancer, the disease is also the leading cause of disability in the US, according to some calculations.

It is becoming clearer that we are on the verge of significant improvements in cancer cure rates and prevention of cancer. When that happens, we will learn again what we learned when antibiotics and childhood vaccines brought about revolutionary decreases in childhood diseases and infectious disease morbidity and mortality. There is always more to be done.