One certain gene slows the growth of cancer up to 10 times. The news about possible slowing down of cancer growth up to ten times were published by scientists from the “National Cancer Institute” in the United States.
U.S. scientists have discovered a gene Brd4, whose presence in laboratory mice allows tumor grow ten times slower than tumors where the gene is not present.
The study carried out on mice referred to breast cancer, but researchers hope that this might be also true for other types of cancer. Test on animals soon turned into clinical researches.
The researches included 1240 patients divided into 5 groups. And these clinical studies have shown encouraging results. Patients who had gene Brd4 present in their organism had a higher survival rate, which was almost double.
“This treatment could be quite helpful in the control of cancer,” said the author of the clinical study, Dr. Kent Hunter from the “National Cancer Institute”.
“Although we are quite far to the fulfillment of this goal, in the near future we could at least predict the course of the disease,” said Dr. Julie Sharp, from the British Centre for Cancer Research. He believes that it is still too early to know with certainty whether this treatment can be effective in humans.
Clinical study suggests that Brd4 gene could play a role in predicting patients survival, although many more things should be done, before scientists can reliably predict aggressive behavior of breast cancer and other types of cancers as well.