A study carried out by researchers at the Institute of Cancer Research, in the United Kingdom, showed that patients who have faced positive breast cancer for the estrogen receptor are more likely to present pulmonary metastasis years after the remission of the primary diagnosis. What is new is that they discovered drugs capable of slowing down and deactivating the growth of these tumors.
According to the research, metastatic tumor cells remain dormant in the lung, even years after the end of treatment for breast cancer.
The findings, published on Tuesday (14), in the scientific journal Nature Cancerreveal that, inside the lung, molecular processes stimulate the growth of these cells, together with the PDGF-C protein, responsible for the growth of body tissues, which will determine whether or not the tumors remain dormant.
As protein levels increase in the body, concomitantly, tumor cells also grow, developing metastasis in the lung.
In this way, the researchers investigated whether blocking the activities of the PDGF-C protein would prevent the “awakening” of the cells.
So they divided the experiments into two groups with mice, which were treated with a cancer growth blocker called imatinib, a drug used to treat patients with chronic myelogenous leukemia. The groups were divided according to pre and post tumor development treatment.
As a result, both groups had decreased tumor cell growth, explain the study authors.
“Now, we plan to better unravel how patients can benefit from the existing drug Imatinib and, in the long term, we intend to create more specific treatments that target the ‘invigoration’ mechanism”, concludes in a statement Frances Turrell, author of the study.
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