A new study may be able to prevent metastasisation.
(Picture: National Cancer Institute/Unsplash)Metastasisation - the spreading of cancer cells from the primary tumour into surrounding body tissues and organs - is the leading cause of death in cancer patients.
Now a new study has found a potential way to stop these cancer cells from entering a person’s blood.
Scientists from Israel are working to produce the world’s first preventative drug to help stop tumours that cause secondary cancer, as reported by The Times of Israel.
The active ingredient in the drug has shown 90 per cent effectiveness when studied on mice.
What the study found and how it could help cancer patients
Current drugs against cancer have worked by reducing the growth of the primary tumour but, until now, no treatment has been available to eradicate metastatic cancer.
The research team at Bar Ilan University has produced a peptide which stops cancer cells from entering the blood and halting any movement to other body parts.
The research was published in a peer-reviewed study and has been successfully shown to help prevent metastasis in mice.
It could mean the drug can be used as a preventative measure when it comes to stopping the spread of diseased cells which cause secondary cancer.
Stopping the spread of secondary tumours
Chemotherapy helps to eradicate cancer cells as much as possible. However, it has little effect on stopping cancer cells from rapidly increasing.
The research team believes this new peptide - a chain of amino acids – will be successful on all solid tumours.
According to the efficacy rate, mice with breast cancer who received the peptide were at least 90 per cent less likely than the control group to develop secondary tumours.
Professor Jordan Chill, a co-author of the paper, said of this new discovery: “We think this may impede metastasis by stopping the invadopodia from activating.
“I anticipate it might be used with chemotherapy or other cancer-cell-killing therapies,” he added.
