Latest news with #metastasis
The Independent
4 days ago
- Health
- The Independent
Bowel cancer discovery offers hope for young patients
Scientists have discovered that bowel cancer cells can transform into skin or muscle cells, allowing them to spread more aggressively. The discovery offers hope for treating the increasing rates of the disease, especially among young people. Bowel cancer is the second most common cause of cancer deaths in the UK, claiming 16,800 lives annually, with early-onset rates rising in adults aged 25-49, particularly among young women in Scotland and England. Researchers found that the loss of the Atrx gene in bowel cancer cells leads to increased metastatic tumours spreading to the liver, lymph nodes, and diaphragm, as these cells shed their colonic identity to resemble skin or muscle cells. They say that understanding how bowel cancer cells 'shapeshift' is vital for developing new treatments to prevent cancer spread.
Daily Mail
23-05-2025
- Health
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE Meet the medical school dropout who could end 70% of cancer deaths after groundbreaking discovery
When Raphael Rodriguez realized medical school was not for him and left after the first year, he was forced to reconsider his entire life plan. 'I knew I was still destined to help people somehow,' he told He swapped scrubs for a lab coat, learning from top organic chemists at Oxford and Cambridge. It was in the lab — not the lecture hall — that he had his revelation. 'Very quickly, I realized that when you know what compound to make, and if you're capable of making it, then you might be able to pull out a drug and cure many more people than you if you want to be a clinician.' Now, years later, that vision may be coming true — Rodriguez and his team have engineered a powerful new compound that could stop cancer from doing what it does best: spreading and killing. Called Fentomycin-1, the experimental molecule targets one of cancer's most dangerous weapons — its ability to metastasize to other parts of the body — which is responsible for at least 70 percent of cancer deaths. The rest are due to complications from localized tumors or blood cancers. 'When you look at the literature, you quickly realize that 70 percent of cancer patients do not succumb to the primary tumor, but the metastatic spread,' Rodriguez said. 'I realized the gap. The treatments we have are not sufficient — they are not designed to target metastasis, and they are not designed to target the capacity of a cell to migrate.' Cancer cells hoard iron in special compartments called lysosomes, which makes them more aggressive — but also gives them a hidden weakness. That same iron can trigger a process called ferroptosis, which destroys the cancer cell from the inside out. Rodriguez said: 'We conceptualize the fact that cancer cells can exploit iron chemistry to adapt, to change identity, to be plastic, to become invasive.' But at the same time, he said, iron is chemically active (redox-active), meaning it easily reacts with molecules in cells. 'The paper that we just published exploits that finding, basically: could we develop a compound that would accumulate inside of the cell where iron is loaded, and can we manipulate the chemistry of iron?' Rodriguez, a French biochemist, helped develop Fentomycin-1, a molecule that supercharges ferroptosis. In early lab tests, metastatic cancer cells were wiped out in less than 12 hours. 'And this was spectacular,' Rodriguez said. 'At this point in time, cancer patients are dying — specifically in this population [with these cancers]. 'And it was very gratifying for us to see that we are capable of designing a compound that does what we wanted to do.' The team tested Fento-1 in aggressive forms of pancreatic cancer, breast cancer, and sarcomas, a group of rare malignant tumors that form in bones or soft tissues — all known for drug resistance, high iron levels, and grim survival rates. In mice injected with breast cancer cells, the drug slowed tumor growth and activated the immune system, potentially offering a one-two punch with existing treatments. It also worked well in combination with chemotherapy, especially in pancreatic cancers. Rodriguez's lab even tested tumor samples taken directly from patients after surgery. The compound reduced the number of cells with CD44, a protein that helps cancer resist drugs and spread to new organs. Because cancer cells have higher iron levels than surrounding healthy tissue, Fento-1 can target tumors with precision, leaving normal cells relatively unharmed. Clinical trials will be needed to determine if these molecules could be leveraged as new cancer treatments. Before then, Rodriguez said, his team will have to raise funds for the next stage of research, which will establish basic knowledge about how the compound might interact with living human cells in the body. But Rodriguez is clear — getting there will take funding, testing, and more time. 'There are a few other [data sets] that are not published, and what we now need to do is [figure out] can we scale up the compound, is it stable, is it bioavailable, can we take it by IV, how does it get decomposed inside the body, what is the clearance of it?' 'At this point in time,' he added, 'we are happy with the compound we made.' His team's findings were published in the journal Nature. When cancer cells spread beyond their original site in the body, or metastasize, it becomes markedly more difficult to treat and reach remission. Metastatic cancer cells can adapt to new, hostile environments, such as unfamiliar organs and tissues, adjusting their metabolism and outsmarting the immune system. They are also adept at resisting chemotherapy by developing ways to prevent the medicine from entering the cell, and radiation treatments, by learning how to repair any damage done to their DNA to help them survive. Estimating the exact number of Americans living with metastatic cancer at any single time is challenging due to limited real-time tracking. The National Cancer Institute estimated in 2018 that there were more than 623,000 people in the US living with the six most common metastatic cancers - bladder, breast, colorectal, lung, melanoma, prostate. That rate was expected to increase to nearly 700,000 in 2025.
South China Morning Post
21-05-2025
- Health
- South China Morning Post
Cancer can be made worse by high-dose radiotherapy, surprising new study finds
Radioactive treatment is among the first-line therapies used to effectively target and destroy cancer cells Advertisement But the same radiotherapy could also be a double-edged sword that ends up promoting the distant metastasis of tumours, a recent study has demonstrated. Radiation therapy is often used alone or in combination with surgery and chemotherapy to control the growth of localised cancer tumours. However, scientists in the United States have discovered that high doses of radiation could paradoxically lead to the growth of existing metastatic tumours, even when these tumours had not directly received radiation therapy. The groundbreaking work by researchers at the University of Chicago Medicine Comprehensive Cancer Centre was led by China-born biochemist Yang Kaiting. Advertisement Yang became an assistant professor in the university's radiology and oncology department in 2023, after more than five years as a postdoctoral researcher. She returned to China last year to join South China University of Technology's school of biomedical sciences and engineering as a professor.
The Independent
19-05-2025
- Health
- The Independent
How did Biden's doctors miss his condition?
In the wake of former President Joe Biden's 'aggressive' prostate cancer diagnosis, many questioned how the cancer was missed, or only picked up at a later stage, considering his highly monitored medical state. 'Last week, President Joe Biden was seen for a new finding of a prostate nodule after experiencing increasing urinary symptoms. On Friday, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, characterized by a Gleason score of 9 (Grade Group 5) with metastasis to the bone,' a spokesperson said in a statement. The 82-year-old has the most 'aggressive' form of prostate cancer because the cells have been characterized by a Gleason score of 9, the most serious grade group, and have 'metastasized' to the bone. To determine how serious a diagnosis is, pathologists grade each sample of prostate cancer cells based on how quickly they are likely to grow or how aggressive they look, with Grade Group 1 being the least aggressive and Grade Group 5 being the most aggressive. PSA blood testing, a method used to test for prostate-specific antigen, can sometimes have abnormal results, prompting false-positive or false-negative results, according to the American Cancer Society. Some prostate cancers grow so slowly that they would never cause any problems during a person's lifetime. Even if screening detects prostate cancer, at times, medical professionals can't tell if the cancer is truly dangerous and requires treatment. When prostate cancer cells metastasize to other parts of the body, they nearly always go to the bones first. If the cancer grows outside the prostate, medical treatment aims to prevent or slow the spread to the bones. If the cancer has already reached the bones, then controlling or relieving pain and other complications becomes a priority, states the ACS. Biden has not yet revealed what treatment plan he will undergo. North Carolina Congressman Greg Murphy, M.D., a surgeon, said, 'While [I] definitely agree that Biden's declining mental acuity was covered up, it is medically reckless to assume his prostate cancer was as well. 'I have treated prostate cancer patients for 30+ years. Let's get the politics out of medicine,' he stated on X Sunday night. Following PSA tests, medical practitioners may also conduct a digital rectal exam to assess the prostate gland. Typically, screening begins for men at age 50, where there is an average risk of prostate cancer, and they are expected to live at least 10 more years. Yet according to the American Cancer Society, screening at age 40 is urged for men who have more than one first-degree relative who had prostate cancer at an early age. African American men and men who have a first-degree relative (father or brother) diagnosed with prostate cancer at an early age (younger than age 65) are also at higher risk.
