EDINBURGH, Scotland, June 8 (UPI) -- A new discovery about how breast cancer cells move to other parts of the body may help reduce deaths from the disease.
Immune cells called macrophages help breast cancer cells move to the lungs to set up secondary tumors, researchers have found.
The majority of deaths from breast cancer are caused by tumors spreading to other parts of the body, with the lung often being one of the first organs affected, making the discovery potentially significant for reducing deaths.
"Our findings open the door to the development of treatments that target the tumor micro environment, which may stop the deadly progression of breast cancer in its tracks," Professor Jeffrey Pollard, director of the MRC Center for Reproductive Health at the University of Edinburgh, said in a press release.
In mice, blocking the signals between macrophages and cancer cells helped to stop them from entering the lungs from the bloodstream, and many of the ones that did make it into the lungs were unable to begin forming new tumors. In the study, the number of new tumors formed by cells traveling from the breast were decreased by two-thirds.
The study is published in the Journal of Experimental Medicine.
