IRB researchers have detected them in mice and have found a way to eliminate them with genetic techniques before surgery
Scientists at the Barcelona Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB) have managed to take what appears to be an important step in the fight against cancer by identifying the cells that cause metastasis in colon cancer in mice. The group, led by the Spanish biologist Eduard Batlle, has also discovered a way to combat them using genetic techniques, which could be applied before surgery. The finding, published today Wednesday in the journal ‘Nature’, could be called to change the panorama of oncological diseases if, as expected, the results can be repeated in humans and if, in addition, what is seen in colorectal cancers also occurs in other solid tumors.
The finding is, very possibly, one of those that will mark the science of this year 2022. The work obtained is the result of a basic science, still laboratory, not clinical; but it is strong enough to generate high hopes. For several reasons. Colon cancer is the one that kills more people in the world, after lung cancer; and metastasis, the main battle horse of all oncological diseases. Batlle, a researcher against colon cancer, does not rule out that they have found ‘one’ of the Achilles heels, not of colorectal cancer, but of tumor pathology as a whole.
Talking about the only one for a health problem that includes more than 200 diseases and all of them very diverse is impossible. The step taken is, in any case, decisive, because 90% of deaths from cancer, nine out of ten, are due to the process of expansion of the disease to other organs: metastasis.
The process of cell invasion
What has been done? What the Catalan group has fundamentally achieved is to design a way of seeing something that until now was invaluable to the human eye and its detection equipment. The malignant cells of colon cancer, which the researchers have named HRC (High Relapse Cells) (HRC), went unnoticed by traditional diagnostic tools.
What the scientists at the IRB in Barcelona have done is to design an experimental mouse model that has allowed them to identify them, see how they detach from the intestines and also how they invade the liver and lungs. The work has made it possible to identify 99 genes that are activated in patients with a higher risk of relapse and that, at a certain moment, detach from the primary tumor and are deposited in other organs. The finding will allow, it is believed, early detection of patients with a higher risk of metastasis,
Eliminating them through genetic techniques would suffice, according to Batlle, to prevent relapse. “Our work opens up avenues for the development of new therapies specifically aimed at eliminating residual disease, as well as new diagnostic tools to identify those patients at higher risk,” says the researcher,
chance of recurrence
His group has confirmed that these metastatic cells have little proliferative activity and, in general, do not contribute to the growth of the primary tumor. Individuals with HRC are, however, at increased risk of cancer recurrence after surgery and chemotherapy.
The report ‘Cancer figures 2022’ published by the Spanish Society of Medical Oncology estimates that this year 43,000 new cases of colorectal cancer will be diagnosed in our country. Removal surgery, reinforced with chemotherapy, allows the disease to be overcome in most cases. But in many others, from 20% to 35% of the time, which are not few, metastases originate that lead to a poor prognosis.
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