Chemotherapy may help cancer spread, according to new study

A new study, using data from mouse models, demonstrated that chemotherapy can paradoxically enhance cancer progression.Photo byNational Cancer InstituteonUnsplash

Chemotherapy is the treatment of choice before most cancer surgeries, but a study from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University in New York, using data from mouse models demonstrated that chemotherapy can paradoxically enhance cancer progression.

The study was headed by Dr. George Karagiannis, who found the number of “entry points” through which cancer cells can get into the blood stream and disperse throughout the body was increased in 20 patients receiving two common chemotherapy drugs. He also discovered that in mice, breast cancer chemotherapy increased the number of cancer cells circulating the body and in the lungs.

“Despite reducing the size of primary tumors, chemotherapy changes the tumor microenvironment, resulting in an increased escape of cancer cells into the blood stream,” according to the study. “Furthermore, chemotherapy changes the tissue microenvironment at the distant sites, making it more hospitable to cancer cells upon their arrival.”

Data from pre-clinical research using mouse models supports the notion that chemotherapy can enhance metastasis and that this paradoxical effect of chemotherapy is likely to have human relevance. The data indicates that it may be possible to improve the efficacy of chemotherapy by inhibiting its paradoxical pro-cancer effect.

Many questions remain. How applicable are the findings to different chemotherapeutic agents and cancers? How will combination chemotherapy using multiple drugs affect the data?

Source:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6274941/#:~:text=Despite%20reducing%20the%20size%20of,cancer%20cells%20upon%20their%20arrival.