Tumor cells in the trap
Larissa Melville completed her traineeship in the editorial team of . After studying biology at Ludwig Maximilians University and the Technical University of Munich, she first got to know digital media online at Focus and then decided to learn medical journalism from scratch.
More about the experts All content is checked by medical journalists.Once a tumor has spread, it is often too late. A new method could help: it intercepts migrating cancer cells before they reach other organs.
Usually most of the body's cells stay in place. However, malignant tumor cells can detach themselves from their tissue association and go on the move. They reach other parts of the body via the blood and lymph, where they settle and multiply. Since the cancer cells are only found in very small amounts in the blood and lymph, it is difficult to track down and fight them. Lonnie Shea from Northwestern University in Chicago and her colleagues have therefore developed an approach that does not look for cancer cells, but attracts them.
Immune cells attract cancer cells
The intelligent core of this method is a tablet-sized, well-tolerated plastic implant that is implanted under the skin or, for example, in the breast fat tissue. Once the implant is in place, it triggers an immune response. As a result, various immune cells collect around the implant. Some of them nest in the spongy tissue and provide a perfect location for cancer cells. Because these do not accumulate anywhere in the body, but only where the environmental parameters are perfect and they can multiply well - the tumor cells particularly like to settle in the lungs and liver, for example.
To what extent the small trap actually works, the researchers tested with mice that had developed aggressive, widely spread breast cancer. The researchers inserted the implant into half of the mice, the rest acted as controls. After one and three weeks, the scientists x-rayed the implant using what is known as optical coherence tomography. They also examined whether metastases had formed in the lungs and liver.
Tumor cells in the trap
The result: after just a week, the researchers identified cancer cells in the trap. But not only that: The trap also directly protected the organs from infestation: in the mice with implants, the team discovered significantly fewer cancer cells in the lungs and liver after three weeks. “The tumor burden in the lungs was reduced by a full 88 percent,” the researchers said. A similar picture emerged in the liver: In the mice without implants, the team found cancer cells in the liver of all animals tested. In contrast, only 25 percent of the mice with implants had an infected liver.
Method with a future
"In patients with a high risk of cancer recurrence, the implant could enable rapid therapy after completion," the authors write.
Every year almost 500,000 people in Germany develop cancer. Most of those affected are older: the mean age of onset is 69 for women and 68 for men. If the cancer is detected and treated early, the prognosis is good nowadays. But if the tumor is already large and has spread - i.e. there are already daughter tumors in other organs - the chance of recovery is usually poor. Therefore, preventive examinations such as a colonoscopy, which enable an early diagnosis, are particularly important.
Source:
Azarin S. A. et al .: In vivo capture and label-free detection of early metastatic cells. Nature Communications. doi: 10.1038 / ncomms9094
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