THIS STORY ORIGINALLY appeared in WIRED Italia and has been translated from Italian.
Pancreatic cancer turns off one of our most important genes for growing and spreading, new research A study published in the journal Gastro Hep Advances has found that…
Cancer is one of the most aggressive human diseases. It is the 12th most common cancer in the world, with more than half a million new diagnoses each year, although it is often detected only at an advanced stage, when treatment options are limited. As a result, it has one of the worst survival rates, with more than half of patients dying within three months of diagnosis.
“Pancreatic cancer has the lowest survival rate among the 20 most common cancers. Patient survival at five years after diagnosis has improved very little,” said Maria Hatziapostolou, a researcher at the John van Geest Cancer Research Centre at Nottingham Trent University and co-author of the study. The Guardian“It is extremely important to find new ways to better understand this disease, how it spreads and why it is so aggressive.”
In the study, researchers analyzed samples of healthy and tumor tissue. In their analysis, they discovered that pancreatic cancer triggers a process known as DNA methylation, in which molecules attach to DNA and alter the way the body reads it. In this case, DNA methylation disables HNF4A, a gene that helps promote the proper functioning of many organs. By disabling the gene, cancer cells can spread very quickly. “The loss of HNF4A drives the development and aggressiveness of pancreatic cancer, and we now know that it is linked to poor patient survival,” Hatziapostolou explained in a press release on Monday.
“We desperately need less invasive and more effective treatment options for pancreatic cancer,” said Chris Macdonald, director of Pancreatic Cancer UK, in the same press release. Eighty percent of pancreatic cancer cases are detected only after the disease has spread and is no longer operable, he added. “This study gives us new information about how pancreatic cancer is able to suppress certain molecules so that they spread aggressively in the body, which, in turn, could lead to the development of more effective treatment options.”