Nature Communications<\/a>, the research revealed rogue cells that change their programming to allow them to divide at a remarkably slow pace, meaning they could form microscopic tumours that silently tick away in distant organs, evading detection for decades.<\/p>\nThis research addresses a major challenge for patients with estrogen receptor-positive (ER+) breast cancer, where the possibility of relapse can linger for years after being declared cancer-free. Even after five to 10 years of initial hormone therapy, up to 30% of patients develop incurable relapse, heavily contributing to the more than 3300 women who die from breast cancer in Australia every year.<\/p>\n
Relapse is known to be caused by cancer cells lying dormant in the bone or other organs before \u2018waking up\u2019 to cause metastasis. The new research provides evidence on a parallel pathway by which stealthy cancer cells develop into secondary tumours \u2013 findings which could uncover new approaches to prevent metastasis.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have become very good at treating primary breast cancer, but late relapses remain a major challenge,\u201d says UNSW Conjoint Associate Professor Liz Caldon, Lab Head at the Garvan Institute and senior author of the study.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile we know some cancer cells can go into a state of complete hibernation, we characterised an important alternative pathway that enables cells to never truly stop dividing during treatment,\u201d A\/Prof. Caldon says.<\/p>\n
\u201cInstead, they survive by growing extremely slowly in the background, until a tiny speck becomes a pebble.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even though these cancer cells are slow-growing, they are far from harmless. Once these \u2018micrometastases\u2019 \u2013 tiny secondary tumours \u2013 cross the threshold of detection or disrupt a vital organ like the brain or bone, they can become a life-threatening relapse that is notoriously resistant to chemotherapy.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor a long time, the idea that extremely slow-growing cells could drive relapse was just a theory,\u201d A\/Prof. Caldon says.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve found evidence for the way this could happen in ER-positive breast cancer,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
\u201cBy identifying the pathways that are important in these slow-growing cells we have a new lever to potentially prevent these deadly outcomes.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Researchers have mapped the drivers of breast cancer cells that resist therapy by growing extremely slowly rather than…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":665112,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[64,63,69596,1325,137,111612,111613,129868,337,69597,69598],"class_list":["post-665111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-division-of-equity-diversity-inclusion","tag-general","tag-health","tag-healthy-lives","tag-medicine-health","tag-networks-and-partnerships","tag-research","tag-sdg","tag-sdg3"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=665111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665111\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/665112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=665111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=665111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=665111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}