ROCHESTER, Minn., April 18 (UPI) -- A U.S.-Chinese research team has isolated an enzyme that might help predict survival and recurrence rates for nasopharyngeal cancer.
Mayo Clinic scientists said nasopharyngeal cancer disproportionately affects people living in southern China and surrounding areas, as well as recent Southeast Asian immigrants to the United States. It also is common in Alaska natives and is 50 percent more likely to occur in blacks than in whites.
The enzyme -- SULF2 -- is a heparin-degrading endosulfatase that appears to be significantly overexpressed in nasopharyngeal cancers. That, said the researchers, provides hope for the eventual ability to predict recurrence and subsequent prognosis after radiation therapy, the standard treatment for nasopharyngeal cancer.
"Learning more about the way a specific type of cancer develops, and what proteins it produces as it grows, helps us find better ways to treat that cancer," said Dr. Jin-Ping Lai, the study's lead author and a Mayo Clinic cancer researcher. "With nasopharyngeal cancer, we think this new enzyme may help solve the puzzle."
The research, by scientists from the Mayo Clinic and China's Xiang Ya Hospital and Central South University, was presented Tuesday in Los Angeles during an American Association for Cancer Research meeting.
