The Gene Treatment That Can Stop Breast Cancer In Its Tracks
Once the tumor is asleep, it gives the immune system a chance to launch an attack and destroy what's left of it. You induce a terminal sleep and then the immune system just gobbles up the tumors.Thousands of women a year are diagnosed with breast cancer. The disease affects one in nine women at some point in their lives.
Treatment normally consists of surgery to remove the tumor, followed by chemotherapy, and radiotherapy to kill off and remaining cells. Around 60 percent of women have tumors that thrive on the female hormone estrogen. These patients are often treated with estrogen - blocking drugs to prevent the hormone feeding the tumor and so helping it to grow. Tamoxifen is the best known of these. But for the remaining 40 percent of breast cancer patients, hormone - blocking drugs are useless because the tumors don't need estrogen to flourish. These types of tumors are often fast- growing.
Researchers have made two important discoveries concerning these dangerous cancers, the first is that one particular gene called Id1, is very active in them. The second is that, by switching off this gene, they can trigger off something called senescence - a kind of sleep like state in which cancer cells stop dividing and the tumor starts to shrink.
Although hundreds of genes are believed to be involved in the development and growth of breast cancer, the latest research has focused on the Id1 gene because previous studies showed that although it is normally only produced by the embryo when it is developing in the womb, it seems to be reactivated again in certain tumors, such as breast cancer.
Scientists implanted the gene into mice. Those mice that were treated formed aggressive tumors. The next step was to turn off production of the gene, using a drug called doxycycline, a medicine often used to treat infections. When gene output was turned off, researchers found that the tumor effectively "fell asleep", and that the cancer cells that previously divided at a rapid rate, stopped dividing completely.
In 40 percent of cases the cancer then shrank as the immune system attacked and destroyed the remaining malignant tissue. Although the results are interesting they have yet to be replicated in humans.
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