Prostate Cancer Treatment May Have Downside
Reported October 3, 2007
(Ivanhoe Newswire) — A common treatment given to men who suffer from aggressive prostate cancer may actually be helping those cancers migrate to other parts of the body.
Researchers from Johns Hopkins University came to that conclusion after studying the role androgen deprivation therapy plays in activating a protein called nestin. Anodrogen deprivation therapy slows tumor growth by depriving cancer cells of testosterone. Nestin is linked to cell growth and development.
The study was spurred when the researchers discovered nestin was active in prostate cancer cells grown in the laboratory. From there, they looked for nestin in prostate cancer cells taken from men with cancer that had not spread and in those with cancers that had spread. Nestin was not seen in the first group of men, but was evident in the second.
Since men usually dont receive androgen deprivation therapy unless their cancers are more aggressive, researchers decided the therapy may be fostering the development of the protein.
To further investigate, researchers studied prostate cancer cells that depend on androgens to grow and develop, finding those cells did indeed increase their production of nestin when deprived of androgen. From there they hampered nestin expression in some of the cells and compared them with cells allowed normal nestin expression. Cells with hampered nestin were less likely to migrate out of the cells than cells with normal nestin expression.
So, should men with prostate cancer stop taking androgen deprivation therapy? The researchers stop far short of that recommendation, noting the current findings are too preliminary to change clinical practice. However, they do believe their discovery warrants more study, noting, further investigation into this pathway and may identify novel points for intervention in metastatic prostate cancer.
SOURCE: Cancer Research, 2007;67:9199-9206