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Aug. 7, 2001 |
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Researchers seek to 'inactivate' cancer cells JERUSALEM -- Aug. 7, 2001 (Cancer Digest) -- Controlling cancer by inducing it to remain dormant may offer a new and safer approach to battling this disease, say a group of Israeli researchers. The method holds particular promise for certain slow-growing tumors, such as prostate cancer. The researchers say their approach would carry less harmful side effects than regular chemotherapy, which involves large doses of toxic drugs that inevitably destroy normal cells as well as cancer cells. Led by Drs. Eitan Yefenof and Max Densen of the Hebrew University-Hadassah Medical School the research team has developed a technique of linking a toxic molecule with an antibody directed against specific cancer cell receptors. The cancer cells take up the antibody-toxin compound and the toxin disrupts a key signaling pathway within the cells blocking the cell division mechanism, thus preventing the cells from replicating. The result is that the cancer - even if it may not be totally destroyed - stops growing and becomes dormant. In a series of laboratory experiments, the investigators showed that their method is feasible by introducing a prostate cell carcinoma of human origin adapted to grow in a special strain of immunologically deficient mice (mice which lack an immune system and thus cannot reject the human cells). When treated with the human antibody-toxin complex, the cancer cells introduced into the mice became dormant, and the mice remained healthy for as long as the treatment continued. If shown to be effective in human clinical tests, the approach could offer an alternative treatment for prostate cancer as well as other types of cancer. Prostate cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in men in the United States, exceeded only by lung cancer. The American Cancer Society estimates that 31,500 men in the United States will die of prostate cancer during 2001. Prostate cancer accounts for about 11% of male cancer-related deaths. |
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