In the current study, Patricia Steeg, Ph.D., of the National Cancer Institute and colleagues injected mice with a breast cancer cell line that preferentially gives rise to metastases in the brain, called MDA-MB-231-BR. The researchers engineered some of the cells to overexpress the HER2 protein. Five days after the mice were injected with the cancer cells, the researchers started treating them with lapatinib or a placebo. After 24 days of therapy, the investigators measured and counted brain metastases.
Among mice injected with the HER2-overexpressing cells, those treated with lapatinib developed fewer than half of the large metastases as those that did not receive the drug. A similar reduction occurred among mice injected with the unmodified cells, although a higher dose of lapatinib was required. Lapatinib did not completely prevent the formation of brain metastases, suggesting that some of the tumor cells are resistant to the drug.
"We propose a scenario in which standard treatments such as neurosurgery and stereotactic radiosurgery are used to treat clinical metastases and currently unavailable molecular therapeutics are then used to hold the remaining micrometastases in check. One possible molecular therapeutic is lapatinib, a dual inhibitor of EGFR and HER2 kinases," the authors write
Contact: National Cancer Institute, office of media relations, ncipressofficers@mail.nih.gov, (301) 496-6641
Mitochondrial DNA Copy Number Associated with Risk of Kidney Cancer
Genetic factors were shown to influence the number of copies of mitochondrial DNA
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| Contact: Liz Savage elizabeth.savage@oxfordjournals.org 301-841-1287 Journal of the National Cancer Institute Source:Eurekalert |