Cancer 'Sponge' Can Reduce Tumor Growth And Risk Of Recurrence

A cancer "super-attractor" could be a new implantable device that offers an early warning of relapse in breast cancer patients and reduces the spread of the illness.

This "sponge-like" device tends to attract cancer cells in the blood in the initial stages of cancer recurrence before tumors become visible, the University of Michigan reported.

Hence, while studying mouse models, it was observed that the device attracted detectable numbers of cancer cells before they were seen in conventional scanning techniques. It was also observed that cancer went on to spread to the lungs 88 percent more slowly in mice treated with the implants. They also reached the liver and other organs much slower.

"Breast cancer is a disease that can recur over a long period in a patient's life, and a recurrence is often very difficult to detect until the cancer becomes established in another organ," said Jacqueline Jeruss, an associate professor of surgery in the U-M Comprehensive Cancer Center. "Something like this could be monitored for years and we could use it as an early indicator of recurrence."

Cancer cells don't spread arbitrarily, but tend to reach specific parts of the body led to the path by this significant and novel device.

"We set out to create a sort of decoy-a device that's more attractive to cancer cells than other parts of the patient's body," said Lonnie Shea, the William and Valerie Hall Department Chair of Biomedical Engineering at U-M. "It acts as a canary in the coal mine. And by attracting cancer cells, it steers those cells away from vital organs."

The device uses the natural interactions between cancer cells as well as the body's immune system. Due to cancer, a patient's immune cells get converted into "drones" that will collect in specific organs and like "beacons" will attract cells to some spots. The new implantable device is now called the "brighter beacon." The super-attractor attracts the cancer "beacon" immune cells, as well as cancer cells.

"We were frankly surprised to see that cancer cells appeared to stop growing when they reached the implant," Shea said. "We saw individual cells in the implant, not a mass of cells as you would see in a tumor, and we didn't see any evidence of damage to surrounding tissue."

Scientists are making efforts to work on non-invasive screening techniques to monitor the device. Even though the technology involved is many years away, the researchers are planning to keep developing it and examining the kinds of cancer it could be applied to, according to hngn.

The findings were published in a recent edition of the journal Nature Communications.