While cancer in itself is curable to some extent with the advancement of medical science, it still remains one of the deadliest, especially when these tumorous cells jump into the blood and infect another organ. A new study has now revealed that these tumorous cells in people with breast cancer jump into the blood when people are sleeping.
Metastatic cancer is when tumorous cells that originated in one part of the body jump into another via blood. Also called stage IV cancer, these cells, according to the National Cancer Institute, have features like that of primary cancer and not like the cells in the place where the metastatic cancer is found. This is how doctors can tell that it is cancer that has spread from another part of the body.
The study published in the journal Nature states that dynamics that dictate the generation and dissemination of circulating tumor cells are largely characterized, and it is often assumed that they are constantly shed from growing tumors or are shed as a consequence of mechanical insults.
The findings unravel human physiology that has remained elusive and could enhance treatment strategies and tracking of the progression of these diseases.
Led by researchers from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and the University of Basel, the team has revealed that these cells wake up when the patient is sleeping.
They found that circadian rhythm hormones such as melatonin, testosterone and glucocorticoids dictate the circulating tumor cell dynamics. Circadian rhythms are physical, mental, and behavioral changes that follow a 24-hour cycle. These natural processes respond primarily to light and darkness and affect most living things.
Researchers demonstrated that rest-phase CTC's are highly prone to metastasize, whereas CTC's generated during the active phase are devoid of metastatic ability. They noticed that CTC levels in mice with tumors varied depending on the time of day that their blood was drawn.
This made them collect blood samples from 30 women hospitalized with breast cancer, once during the day and once at night. They found that most of these cells appeared in the portion collected in the morning hours, when the patients were still resting.
Cancer is at its deadliest when a tumor’s cells worm their way into the bloodstream and travel to a new location in the body to set up shop — a process called metastasis. Now, a study finds that for people with breast cancer, these rogue cells — called circulating tumor cells, or CTC's — are more likely to jump into the blood at night than during the day.
The discovery reveals some basic human physiology that has so far flown under the radar and could lead to better ways of tracking cancer’s progression, says a chronobiologist at the University of Manchester, UK.
The research community has been discussing for decades how the body’s circadian rhythm influences cancer. With this study, it has become clear that “tumors wake up when patients are sleeping”, says co-author Nicola Ace to, a cancer biologist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, Switzerland. It’s a “step forward” in understanding metastasis, he says. “And steps forward are a good thing for patients in the long-term”. The research was published on 22 June in Nature1.
You must be logged in to post a comment.