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Focus on cancer that spreads to the brain
Scientists based in Dublin have received funding to study how bad cancer tumors spread to the brain.
Every year in Ireland, nearly 2,800 women receive a new diagnosis of bad cancer. While survival rates have increased, if bad tumors begin to spread to other parts of the body, called secondary or metastatic bad cancer, the disease becomes incurable.
Almost every 700 women who die each year from bad cancer in Ireland have experienced the spread of their cancer. The brain is a commonplace for spreading the disease and these secondary tumors can be very aggressive.
They can have a big impact on the quality of life due to symptoms such as headaches, convulsions, mood / behavior changes, vomiting and uncoordinated movements.
One of the challenges that scientists face when treating bad cancer that has spread to the brain is developing drugs that can cross the network of brain security – the blood-brain barrier. This acts as a protective filter, preventing harmful substances from reaching the brain, but it can also filter out useful drugs, which means that treatment options are limited.
However, scientists from the Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland (RCSI) have now received more than 200,000 euros from the UK's largest bad cancer charity, Breast Cancer Now, to study further before this area.
They recently discovered that genetic switches that activate the RET protein are very common in bad cancer tumors that have spread to the brain, suggesting that they could play a key role.
With this new funding, Prof. Leonie Young, Dr. Damir Varešlija and the Endocrine Oncology Research Team of the RCSI are looking to discover the exact role of RET in the spread of bad cancer to the brain.
They plan to grow cells in the laboratory and then study how silencing the gene that produces RET, or blocking it itself, can affect the ability of bad cancer cells to spread.
Their tests will involve mice. However, as similar drugs are already being evaluated to treat lung and thyroid cancers, it is hoped that RET blocking drugs could be accelerated in trials for bad cancer that will not work. is spread to the brain.
It is hoped that successful trials could help improve and prolong the lives of people with metastatic bad cancer.
"Brain metastases really represent an unmet need in the treatment of current cancer and urgently require more investment.Through our research funded by Breast Cancer Now, we will be able to pursue what promises to be. to be a very intriguing target that could potentially prevent the spread of bad cancer cells to the brain in the first place, "said Dr. Young.
This research was described as "vital" by Dr. Simon Vincent, director of Breast Cancer Now.
"Professor Young's vital research could pave the way for new treatments to combat bad cancer that has spread to the brain.But not only is secondary bad cancer incurable, but when tumors spread to brain, side effects can be extremely debilitating.We urgently need to develop new treatments to give these patients more time to live and improve their quality of life, "he said.
Breast Cancer now supports nearly 380 researchers in 31 institutions in the United Kingdom and Ireland.
* In the photo, Professor Leonie Young of the RCSI
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