A group of researchers led by VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland have discovered a previously unknown mechanism that lung cancer cells use when spreading to other parts of the body, a finding that experts believe will further the understanding of how all cancers metastasize and dictate future trends in the treatment of lung and other cancers.
Researchers from VTT, as well as several others from the Universities of Turku (Finland) and Heidelberg (Germany), joined together in this endeavor to discover how cancer cells are able to change in such a manner that a factor that previously assisted them in staying in place starts to assist the cells’ adhesion receptors, eventually becoming the precondition needed by the cells to migrate to other parts of the body. Furthermore, the study showed that cancer cells use their adhesion receptors in a manner that was previously unknown to cancer researchers.
Findings such as this will assist researchers who are dealing with the study of all kinds of lung cancers, including malignant pleural mesothelioma, an aggressive cancer that metastasizes quickly and generally kills within a year or two of diagnosis. Mesothelioma causes include exposure to toxic asbestos, usually on the job or through home improvement or other projects where one encounters asbestos dust.
Typical mesothelioma treatment methods have traditionally proven less than successful, but discoveries such as the one made in Finland could help steer mesothelioma doctors, like Dr. Raphael Bueno of Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Massachusetts, to look in other directions for more successful treatments of this incurable form of cancer. Robins has published numerous articles on advanced metastasized lung cancer and its treatment and is considered to be an expert in the field.
The results of the Finnish-led study were recently printed in the May 2009 issue of Nature Cell Biology, a leading scientific journal.
For additional information regarding asbestos exposure, mesothelioma causes, and mesothelioma treatment options, please visit the Mesothelioma and Asbestos Awareness Center.
