Chemotherapy and Stem Cells

cb123

I want to address this thought because there's a little confusion running around the internet.

Cancer has it's very own stem-like cells. Similar to the other stem cells in our bodies.

Current chemotherapies cannot penetrate the stem-like cells to deliver their poisons in the same way the regular cancerous cells are penetrated.

So when chemo shrinks a tumor, it's killed a lot of cancerous cells, but probably not many of the stem-like cancer cells. Leaving a larger percentage of stem-like to regular cancer cells in our bodies.

There is research from Ohio State University and they are working on this problem. Here's the link:

Chitosan-Coated, Chemotherapy-Packed Nanoparticles May Target Cancer Stem Cells

Chemo has come a long way with Targeted Chemotherapies.

We have a very long way to go with cancer research. Cancer is a tricky little critter and things that work on one cancerous cell may not work on another cancerous cell.

While I still believe chemo will not work for me, I still believe chemo will and does work for so many others.

So, here's wishing The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center – Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute, tremendous success with their studies of stem-like cancer cells.

cb

Doing my homework and sharing the love.

Hopeful82014

This sounds so very promising - I hope that it does come to fruition! Thanks for posting it, CB.

cb123

Still doing my homework on this and came across a nice article:

Breast cancer stem cells express HER2, even in 'negative' tumors, study finds

" A recent study based on new analyses of old data found some tumors were incorrectly categorized as HER2-positive and as a result those women received adjuvant Herceptin. It turns out, they benefited as much from the treatment as woman with actual HER2-positive cancer."

"The researchers had previously shown HER2 plays an important role in cancer stem cells the small number of cells in a tumor that fuel its growth and spread. These cells represent 1 percent to 5 percent of all the cells in a tumor. They are resistant to current chemotherapy and radiation treatments but since they express HER2, they are effectively targeted by Herceptin."

http://www.breastcancer.org/research-news/20130304

cb