Interesting short article published in Nature. It discusses how tumor-associated inflammatory reaction can lead to cancer, but what happens when this inflammatory response is disrupted, blocked, interrupted? Something to think about.
Oct. 3, 2012 — Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine report the discovery of microbial–dependent mechanisms through which some cancers mount an inflammatory response that fuels their development and growth.
Blocking Tumor-Induced Inflammation Impacts Cancer Development The findings are published in the October 3, 2012 Advanced Online Edition of Nature.
Oct. 3, 2012 — Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine report the discovery of microbial–dependent mechanisms through which some cancers mount an inflammatory response that fuels their development and growth.
The association between chronic inflammation and tumor development has long been known from the early work of German pathologist Rudolph Virchow. Harvard University pathologist Harold Dvorak later compared tumors with “wounds that never heal,” noting the similarities between normal inflammation processes that characterize wound- healing and tumorigenesis or tumor-formation.
Indeed, 15 to 20 percent of all cancers are preceded by chronic inflammation – a persistent immune response that can target both diseased and healthy tissues. Chronic hepatitis, for example, may result in hepatocellular carcinoma (liver cancer) and inflammatory bowel disease can eventually cause a form of colon cancer, known as colitis-associated cancer.
