Washington, Oct 7 (Inditop.com) Think of a protective fence that blocks the neighbour’s dog from charging into your backyard. The body, too, has fences — physical and biochemical barriers that keep cells in their place.
When breast cancer spreads (metastasizes), it crashes through the body’s protective fences. The disease becomes fatal when it travels outside the mammary ducts, enters the bloodstream and spreads to the bones, liver or brain.
Currently, there are only drugs that try to stem the uncontrolled division of cancer cells within the ducts. Until now, no drugs specifically targeted the invasion and spread of breast cancer to the organs.
A researcher from Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine (NUFSM) has found a way to strengthen the breast’s “fence” to prevent cancer from metastasizing.
Researcher Seth Corey of the NUFSM and principal study investigator has discovered that when a drug normally used to treat leukemia is added to a commonly used breast cancer drug, the potent new chemotherapy cocktail helps prevent breast cancer cells from invading.
“This is an entirely new way of targeting a cancer cell,” said Corey, professor of cancer biology and chemotherapy at the Feinberg School.
Working in the lab with women’s breast cancer cells, Corey found that when the leukemia drug dasatinib is combined with the breast cancer drug doxorubicin, the potent mix inhibits breast cancer cell invasion by half, said a Feinberg release.
These findings were recently reported in the British Journal of Cancer.
