{"id":15132,"date":"2019-11-12T18:15:54","date_gmt":"2019-11-12T18:15:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cmshub.wpengine.com\/?p=286369"},"modified":"2024-11-03T15:16:52","modified_gmt":"2024-11-03T15:16:52","slug":"hormone-therapy-can-put-cancer-cells-into-sleep-mode-and-cause-a-relapse-years-afterwards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/hormone-therapy-can-put-cancer-cells-into-sleep-mode-and-cause-a-relapse-years-afterwards\/","title":{"rendered":"Hormone Therapy Can Put Cancer Cells Into Sleep Mode And Cause A Relapse Years Afterwards"},"content":{"rendered":"

Breast cancer cells are able to go into \u201csleep mode\u201d and lie dormant until they are triggered into action again, researchers out of Imperial College London<\/a> found.<\/span>The trigger? Hormone treatments.<\/span>\u201cFor a long time, scientists have debated whether hormone therapies \u2013 which are a very effective treatment and save millions of lives \u2013 work by killing breast cancer cells or whether the drugs flip them into a dormant \u2018sleeper\u2019 state,\u201d said<\/a> Dr. Luca Magnani, the author of the study who\u2019s a doctor in Imperial\u2019s Department of Surgery and Cancer.<\/span>\u201cThis is an important question as hormone treatments are used on the majority of breast cancers,\u201d she continued<\/a>. \u201cOur findings suggest the drugs may kill some cells and switch others into this sleeper state. If we can unlock the secrets of these dormant cells, we may be able to find a way of preventing cancer coming back, either by holding the cells in permanent sleep mode, or be waking them up and killing them.\u201d<\/span>\"\"<\/span>Photo: Adobe Stock\/fizkes<\/span>
\n<\/span>Hormone therapy is often used to treat breast cancers that are estrogen-receptor positive (ER+). Over 70% of breast cancers are ER+<\/a>. Since these cancer cells are fueled by estrogen, hormone therapy deploys blockers for their estrogen receptors, which starves the cancer cells and kills them.<\/span>However, hormone therapy isn\u2019t without its downside. Roughly 30% of breast cancer patients<\/a> who undergo hormone therapies experience a recurrence or relapse of their breast cancer. Recurrence can happen shortly after treatment ends, or years later. And when the cancer returns, it is often metastatic and more aggressive than before. Metastatic cancer (also called stage IV) is cancer that has travelled from the origin site to other areas of the body, such as the the brain, liver, lungs, or bones.<\/span>Recurring breast cancer can also be resistant to treatments.<\/span>\"\"<\/span>Photo: Adobe Stock\/vitanovski<\/span>
\n<\/span>This study on hormone therapy and breast cancer cells was published in the journal Nature Communications<\/a><\/em> and led by a team of researchers at the Imperial College London.<\/span>The team studied 50,000 human breast cancer cells in the lab. When they used hormone therapy on the cells, some of the cells were found to be in a \u201cdormant\u201d state. The therapy didn\u2019t destroy them or leave them untouched \u2014 instead, they essentially put them to sleep.<\/span>Researchers also found that these dormant cancer cells were more likely to metastasize to other parts of the body.<\/span>\u201cOur experiments suggest these sleeper cells are more likely to travel around the body,\u201d said<\/a> Dr Sung Pil Hong, one of the study\u2019s co-authors. \u201cThey could then \u2018awaken\u2019 once in other organs of the body, and cause secondary cancers.\u201d<\/span>\"\"<\/span>Photo: Adobe Stock\/arcyto<\/span>
\n<\/span>In a previous study, this same group of researchers found a possible reason why<\/a> the breast cancer cells become resistant to hormone therapy; some cancer cells were able to create their own \u201cfuel\u201d and therefore didn\u2019t rely solely on estrogen to survive and couldn\u2019t be starved by treatments.<\/span>The most recent study offered additional insight into why this could be: cells in this dormant stage were triggered by the cancer drugs themselves. They shut down but didn\u2019t die, and were able to be reawakened later.<\/span>\u201cThese sleeper cells seem to be an intermediate stage to the cells becoming resistant to the cancer drugs,\u201d said<\/a> Dr. Iros Barozzi, one of the the study\u2019s co-authors. \u201cThe findings also suggest the [cancer] drugs trigger the cancer cells to enter this sleeper state.\u201d<\/span>\"\"<\/span>Photo: Adobe Stock\/science photo<\/span>
\n<\/span>Despite their findings, the research team underscored the value and effectiveness of hormone therapy treatments for breast cancer, and emphasized that it\u2019s one of the most effective treatments for the disease.<\/span>Further research on these sleeper cells could give us more clarity on why breast cancer cells become resistant to some treatments.<\/span>\u201cWe still don\u2019t know how these cells switch themselves into sleep mode \u2013 and what would cause them to wake up. These are questions that need to be addressed with further research,\u201d said Dr. Barozzi<\/a> and Dr. Hong<\/a>.<\/span>Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Breast cancer cells are able to go into \u201csleep mode\u201d and lie dormant until they are triggered into action again, researchers out of Imperial College London found.The trigger? Hormone treatments.\u201cFor a long time, scientists have debated whether hormone therapies \u2013 which are a very effective treatment and save millions of lives \u2013 work by killing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15133,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5137],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15132"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15132\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44393,"href":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15132\/revisions\/44393"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}