They find immune cells to chemotherapy in liver cancer

In China they discovered that the tumors in the liver are formed by a type of cancer stem cell resistant to chemotherapy . This finding will allow scientists to focus on these cells in the fight against Liver cancer.

What are stem cells?

Also calls stem cells , are found throughout the body and have the ability to divide indefinitely without losing its properties and get to produce specialized cells.

The stem cells found in the liver, are responsible for the growth of tumors , of its recreation and resistance to drugs, is so strong that they tend to reappear even when they have been excised.

Cancer cells in the liver

The stem cells that they found, they have a protein CD24 that is only found in this organ. The CD24 It's like a button that when activated turns on another protein that is inside the stem cells STAT3, the latter enters nucleus and carries out the functions of the cancer cell: form tumors , spreading and its resistance to medications .

Not everyone has the same amount of this protein in our body, in fact it has been seen that those patients with liver cancer, who have high concentrations of the CD24 It has an 80% chance that the cancer will spread, a greater chance of it coming back and a lower life expectancy.

What is being done?

The study so far is in experimental stage , but with favorable results, two cell colonies were implanted in different mice; one with CD24 and another without the protein.

So that in the liver with excess CD24 developing Cancer besides that it spread to the lungs; contrary to mice without the protein that did not show any indication of disease .

The researchers of State Key Laboratory for Liver Research in University of Hong Kong believe that if you can inhibit STAT3, the functions of the cancer stem cells .


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