Scientists Discover Cell of Origin for Childhood Muscle Cancer
Posted 02-16-2011 at 03:26 PM by admin
ScienceDaily (Feb. 14, 2011) — Researchers at Oregon Health & Science University Doernbecher Children's Hospital have defined the cell of origin for a kind of cancer called sarcoma. In a study published February 15 as the Featured Article in the journal Cancer Cell, they report that childhood and adult sarcomas are linked in their biology, mutations and the cells from which these tumors first start. These findings may lead to non-chemotherapy medicines that can inhibit "molecular targets" such as growth factor receptors, thereby stopping or eradicating the disease.
Childhood muscle cancer, or rhabdomyosarcoma, is a condition that when spread throughout the body has a low survival rate -- just 20 percent to 40 percent. In adults with soft tissue sarcomas, survival can be even lower. Now, for the first time, the researchers have shown from where these tumors arise and what drives them to grow and spread.
"A commonly held belief is that cancers should be cut out, burned out or killed. There is a fourth option -- to have cancer cells choose to become normal cells, in this case muscle cells," said Charles Keller, M.D., principal investigator of the study, leader of Pediatric Cancer Biology Program in the Papé Family Pediatric Research Institute at OHSU Doernbecher Children's Hospital, and a member of the OHSU Knight Cancer Institute and the Oregon Stem Cell Center at OHSU.
"At least for a subset of patients, possibly the ones with hereditary cancer, one approach suggested by our research might be to administer drugs that muscle cancers to convert into non-cancerous muscle fibers. This is a minority opinion, but one held by a small group of careful scientists throughout the United States and abroad," said Keller.
Read the rest of the article here.
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Childhood muscle cancer, or rhabdomyosarcoma, is a condition that when spread throughout the body has a low survival rate -- just 20 percent to 40 percent. In adults with soft tissue sarcomas, survival can be even lower. Now, for the first time, the researchers have shown from where these tumors arise and what drives them to grow and spread.
"A commonly held belief is that cancers should be cut out, burned out or killed. There is a fourth option -- to have cancer cells choose to become normal cells, in this case muscle cells," said Charles Keller, M.D., principal investigator of the study, leader of Pediatric Cancer Biology Program in the Papé Family Pediatric Research Institute at OHSU Doernbecher Children's Hospital, and a member of the OHSU Knight Cancer Institute and the Oregon Stem Cell Center at OHSU.
"At least for a subset of patients, possibly the ones with hereditary cancer, one approach suggested by our research might be to administer drugs that muscle cancers to convert into non-cancerous muscle fibers. This is a minority opinion, but one held by a small group of careful scientists throughout the United States and abroad," said Keller.
Read the rest of the article here.
Copyright © 1995-2010 ScienceDaily LLC — All rights reserved
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