Long considered the most effective cancer-fighting treatment, chemotherapy may actually make cancer worse, according to a shocking new study. The extremely aggressive therapy, which kills both cancerous and healthy cells indiscriminately, can cause healthy cells to secrete a protein that sustains tumor growth and resistance to further treatment.
Researchers in the United States made the "completely unexpected" finding while seeking to explain why cancer cells are so resilient inside the human body when they are easy to kill in the lab.
They tested the effects of a type of chemotherapy on tissue collected from men with prostate cancer, and found "evidence of DNA damage" in healthy cells after treatment, the scientists wrote in Nature Medicine.
Chemotherapy works by inhibiting reproduction of fast-dividing cells such as those found in tumors. The scientists found that healthy cells damaged by chemotherapy secreted more of a protein called WNT16B which boosts cancer cell survival.
"The increase in WNT16B was completely unexpected," study co-author Peter Nelson of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle told AFP.
Within months of being soaked with a glyphosate herbicide while working on a cell tower maintenance...
Diary entries released by a Republican senator in an attempt to damage Anthony Fauci also show...
In March in a McDonald's parking lot off a busy Baltimore street, mental health clinician Michala...
The Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo has continued to spread, with the number...
