Finding Ways to Starve the Cancer Seed

Oncologists often describe cancer as a seed that grows in the body's soil. For these seeds to become tumors, the "soil" must be stocked with nutrients such as growth factors to help them proliferate. "Cancer is not a single-cell disease but involves cancer cells and how they collaborate or cooperate with surrounding cells," says Leland Chung, director of molecular urology and therapeutics at Winship Cancer Institute, Emory University School of Medicine. New approaches to starving cancer cells fi

Written byMignon Fogarty

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Blood vessels feed tumors and remove waste products, and they are necessary for tumor growth. Inhibiting this blood vessel growth could prevent tumor growth. "The whole concept is so fundamentally sound," says J. Clifford Murray, University of Nottingham Cancer Research Campaign Department of Clinical Oncology. "The endothelial cell [lining the blood vessels] is immediately attractive because of its accessibility. It's the first cell within a tumor that any reagent is going to reach." The efficacy of this approach, however, is as yet unknown.¹ "We are going into a difficult time at the moment, waiting to see if these agents will bear any fruit," says Murray. Oncologists seem most impressed with an antivascular endothelial growth factor (anti-VEGF) monoclonal antibody. "The data at AACR that impressed me the most were the trials of ...[an] anti-VEGF in combination with chemotherapy. Researchers were getting quite significant improvements in survival [rates]," observes Murray.

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