Scientists discover how a type of leukemia reaches the brain



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In a new study, researchers discovered that this cancer infiltrates the central nervous system by preventing a protective barrier of the brain. Now scientists are hoping to study it and look for a method to shut it down and thus prevent the spread of this cancer.


The Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL) has a mechanism by which succeeded in avoiding a barrier Protecting the brain and invading it which has now been discovered and described in a study published today by Nature.

Knowing this mechanism, the experts have new ways of focusing on the way that cells use to enter the central nervous system and "hope to close" according to Lead author of the study, Dorothy Sipkins, of the Duke Cancer Institute (USA)

When ALL reaches the central nervous system "is very difficult to treat" because most drugs are stuck in the "blood-brain barrier" – designed to protect the brain from the dangers of blood circulation Knowing how cancer cells have overcame it is an unanswered question for decades .

Researchers have found, with tests in mice, that cancer of the blood infiltrating the central nervous system does not break this barrier,

All cancer cells are equipped with receptors capable of binding to proteins outside the blood vessels that transport them from the bone marrow through the membranes.

Dorothy Sipkins, badociate professor at Duke and one of the authors of the study, said that the way cancer cells travel to the central nervous system is "very unexpected"

. The knowledge of this mechanism provides the experts with new ways to focus on "this way and, hopefully, close it," added the scientist.

The discovery culminates More than a decade of research, during which most of the time was spent in a "dead end" trying to find the key by which the ALL is able to cross the blood-brain barrier .

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