The deadly spread of cancer around the body has been cut by three-quarters in animal experiments, say scientists.<\/p>\n
Tumours can “seed” themselves elsewhere in the body and this process is behind 90% of cancer deaths.<\/p>\n
The mouse study, published in Nature, showed altering the immune system slowed the spread of skin cancers to the lungs.<\/p>\n
Cancer Research UK said the early work gave new insight into how tumours spread and may lead to new treatments.<\/p>\n
The spread of cancer – known as metastasis – is a fight between a rapidly mutating cancer and the rest of the body.<\/p>\n
The team at the Sanger Institute in Cambridge was trying to figure out what affected tumour spread in the body.<\/p>\n
Researchers created 810 sets of genetically modified lab mice to discover which sections of the DNA were involved in the body resisting a cancer’s spread.<\/p>\n
The animals were injected with melanomas (skin cancer) and the team counted the number of tumours that formed in the lung.<\/p>\n
Their hunt led them to discover 23 sections of DNA, or genes, that made it either easier or harder for a cancer to spread.<\/p>\n
Many of them were involved in controlling the immune system.<\/p>\n
Targeting one gene – called Spns2 – led to a three-quarters reduction in tumours spreading to the lungs.<\/p>\n
“It regulated the balance of immune cells within the lung,” Dr David Adams, one of the team, told the BBC News website.<\/p>\n
“It changes the balance of cells that play a role in killing tumour cells and those that switch off the immune system.”<\/p>\n
The field of immunotherapy – harnessing the power of the immune system to fight cancer – has delivered dramatic results for some patients.<\/p>\n
A rare few with a terminal diagnosis have seen all signs of cancer disappear from their body, although the drugs still fail to work in many patients.<\/p>\n
Dr Adams said: “We’ve learnt some interesting new biology that we might be able to use – it’s told us this gene is involved in tumour growth.”<\/p>\n
Drugs that target Spns2 could produce the same cancer-slowing effect but that remains a distant prospect.<\/p>\n
Dr Justine Alford, from Cancer Research UK, said: “This study in mice gives a new insight into the genes that play a role in cancer spreading and may highlight a potential way to treat cancer in the future.<\/p>\n
“Cancer that has spread is tough to treat, so research such as this is vital in the search for ways to tackle this process.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
–<\/p>\n
Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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