Evil from birth
Do tumors become particularly aggressive and prone to metastasis during growth, or are they initially such? The answer to this question has been of interest to researchers for a long time. It would help to choose the management tactics of an oncological patient – dynamic observation or radical removal – at the earliest stages of tumor detection.
A group of researchers from Duke University and the University of Southern California found that aggressive tumors are immediately born malignant, and do not acquire this property during growth. The nature of the tumor can be determined at an early diagnosis.
Benign and malignant tumors develop differently. Cell displacement is an important feature of malignancy, it manifests itself very early during tumor growth. When testing the early cell movement of small tumors detected during screening, it is possible to determine which patients are shown radical treatment.
Marc D. Ryser and his colleagues relied on data from recent studies proving that many key signs of a tumor are imprinted in the genome of the primary cell. Aggressive tumors immediately appear with the ability to spread, and do not acquire this trait over time, that is, they are born "evil".
The researchers analyzed 19 samples of human colorectal neoplasms using genome sequencing technology and mathematical models. They found signs of early abnormal cell movement in most of the malignant samples – nine out of 15. This feature is required for cancer to spread and leads to a fatal outcome for the body. Early abnormal cell movement was not observed in four benign tumors.
The study was small, and the authors acknowledge that validation of the results in a larger study is required. But these findings are an important step towards creating a test that allows you to distinguish between malignant and benign tumor growth. Thanks to improved screening technologies, oncologists diagnose even the smallest tumors. Since radical treatment can have side effects, it is important to understand which of the identified tumors grow slowly and are relatively harmless, and which of them are particularly dangerous.
Article by M. D. Ryser et al. Spatial mutation patterns as markers of early colorectal tumor cell mobility is published in the journal PNAS.
Aminat Adzhieva, portal "Eternal Youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru based on the materials of DukeHealth: Deadly Cancers Show Early, Detectable Differences from Benign Tumors.