Cancer: Stem Cells In Reaction to Heat

In an attempt to treat cancer, doctors usually use radiation to "zap" tumors. However, this procedure may not always go according to plan. The tumor may originally shrink, but if cells inside of the tumor survive the radiation, they can come back even stronger than before. Researchers have found one solution to this. By heating the tumor prior to the operation the resistance by the stem cells can be drastically lowered. This technique is called hyperthermia. It has only been used to fight breast cancer, but it is possible that it could be effective on other types of cancer as well. Researchers based this technique off one from 5,000 years ago. An ancient Egyptian papyrus shows heat being used to fight breast cancer. However, heating alone with out other techniques has shown to be ineffective. A similar technique was attempted back in the 1970's and 80's, but it proved to be ineffective. Today's success is, in part, due to the technological advancements that have been made. With today's technology we are able to heat the tumors directly and more precisely. Scientists believe that the heat, when applied to the tumor, disrupts the stem cells, thus causing it to become more sensitive to radiation. When researchers used radiation on mice, that had human breast tumors transplanted into them, they found that the amount of cancer stem cells in the tumor had greatly increased. However, after, when they used hyperthermia on the tumor, heating it to approximately 108 degrees F, the amount of cancer stem cells ceased to increase and in most cases began to decrease. It is believed that cancer stem cells lost their ability to repair damage caused by the radiation. Researchers hope to set up clinical trials in the Texas Medical Center soon, although similar techniques are being used elsewhere.

Sources:

http://www.hhmi.org/news/atkinson20101102.html

http://drugdiscoveryopinion.com/tag/cancer-stem-cells/

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