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| World Home » Life Style » | Mon. Sep 8, 2008 |
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Breast Cancer can be controlled: New Research mil/agencies, Apr 14, 2007. www.chinaview.cn London, April 14,2007 – The new experiment has confirmed that breast cancer can be checked and controlled. This confirmation is based on spreading this in mice with a simple cocktail of drugs. Some drugs are already approved for human consumption. A research team has shown how four of the genes which seem to help breast cancer cells to metastasize to the lung specifically work in concert to fuel metastasis and addressing these four genes with drugs, they show in mice, has a dramatic effect, according toa report in the latest issue of Nature published on Thursday. The four genes identified by the team led by Joan Massagu at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York are called EREG, MMP1, MMP2 and COX2 which the researchers say are vital both for aggressive growth of the primary tumor and for metastasis as they help to hijack a network of blood vessels to nourish the tumor's own growth, help tumor cells escape into these same blood vessels to reach the lung, and help them to weasel their way through the capillary wall, set up shop and grow. The researchers proved the action of four genes by silencing them in a line of human breast cancer cells, before injecting them into mice, and the gene silencing halted the growth of breast tumors in the mice, and almost completely blocked the formation of lung metastases, according to the report. The researchers showed that a combination of existing drugs known to inhibit the genes' action -- two approved drugs called cetuximab and celecoxib, plus an experimental one called GM6001 --had a similar effect to silencing the genes. The two approved drugs on their own also served to stop the cancer spread. Massagu, who identified in 2005 a roster of genes which seem to help breast cancer cells to metastasize to the lung, said the next step is to find women whose breast tumors are relying on these four genes, and to test whether this combination of drugs would help to protect them from lung cancer. He is now working with doctors to initiate clinical trials.
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