Best Websites

Since 1998 BestWebsites.com.my features thousands of best websites
in many categories of interest with descriptions/reviews given by leading
publications and webmasters.

Home

	Web BestWebsites.com.my

Cell discovery on breast cancer

Clara Pirani

April 17, 2006

AUSTRALIAN researchers have discovered how pre-cancerous cells evade early detection and develop unhindered into breast cancer tumours -- a finding that could lead to a new treatment for the disease.

A study of 280 women in Queensland has revealed that breast cancer destroys the body's dendritic cells, which alert the immune system to the presence of cancer.

Researchers believe that early detection of abnormal cells is essential to give the immune system time to destroy the pre-cancerous cells before they develop into breast cancer.

Alejandro Lopez, a researcher at the Queensland Institute of Medical Research, said while it was known that dendritic cells did not function properly in some cancer patients, the study revealed that breast cancer actually killed such cells.

"We found that breast cancer led to premature death of the dendritic cells so the process of surveillance is ineffective. We did not know this before."

The two-year study, conducted with the Mater Adult Hospital and the Wesley Medical Centre in Brisbane, involved 200 women with breast cancer and 80 women who did not have the disease.

"There were many more cells dying in the blood of the women with breast cancer than there were in the women who didn't have breast cancer," Professor Lopez said.

In a separate study, Professor Lopez found that a molecule naturally produced by the body could protect dendritic cells from premature death.

"We used this molecule, called CD40L, to treat the dendritic cells taken from women with breast cancer, and manipulated the cells to survive longer. We can train and strengthen the cells in the laboratory and we hope we will be able to inject them back into the patients."

The trial is one of several studies into the burgeoning field of immunotherapy, which aims to manipulate the body's immune system to treat cancer. Researchers believe immunotherapy causes fewer side-effects than chemotherapy and radiation.

QIMR researcher Chris Schmidt has had some success using a similar form of immunotherapy to treat 70 patients with advanced melanoma and prostate cancer.

He extracted dendritic cells from patients' blood and mixed them with tumour cells to create a vaccine that was injected back into the patients.

"We've tested it on 70 patients with advanced cancer to date, all who had a terrible prognosis," he said.

"Five patients got rid of all their melanoma and have been cancer-free for up to six years and one prostate cancer patient became cancer-free. That's an extraordinary result.

"The treatment was also really well tolerated and caused no bad side-effects."

Source: News.com.au

Home

Copyright © Copyright © 2006 BestWebsites.com.my - a collection of Best Websites and Articles