Pancreatic cancer is caused by a protein, the discovery of which could help in earlier diagnosis and new treatment methods, according to researchers in Britain.
Pancreatic cancer has the lowest survival rate of all cancers due to its lack of symptoms in the early stages, late diagnosis and its resistance to chemotherapy and radiation therapy.
The research – funded by the Pancreatic Cancer Research Fund – found that nearly three quarters of pancreatic cancer tumours had high levels of a protein known as P110ã. In laboratory experiments, when production of this protein was blocked, the cancer cells stopped growing. The findings are published online today (28 September 2010) in Clinical Cancer Research.
"It is a striking number of patients who present with high levels of P110ã," says Professor of Molecular Pharmacology, Marco Falasca, who led the research. "The fact that P110ã is needed for pancreatic cancer cells to grow shows that it is likely to have a critical role in the progression of the disease, which makes it a potential target for developing new treatments."
The team discovered the link with P110ã by screening both normal and cancerous pancreatic tissue for particular proteins linked to cell proliferation. Up to half of all cancers are linked to a member of one family of these proteins – called Phosphoinositide 3-Kinase (PI3K) – and the team wanted to see if a link could be made with pancreatic cancer.
source: medindia.net
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