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(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- Procedures and treatments that cause inflammation around a prostate tumor may actually trigger the cancer to spread.
Despite inflammation being a part of a body's immune response, which some might believe would actually help fight cancer, researchers from the University of California, San Diego, report proteins produced by inflammatory cells may play a key role in prostate cancer metastasis, or spread.
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Researchers experimented on mice with prostate cancer. Based on their results, they report inflammation can start a chain reaction that actually turns on a cancer cell's ability to spread to other locations in the body.
Now, researchers need to figure out which chemical released by inflammation is actually starting the chain reaction.
Metastatic prostate cancer will kill 1 in 33 men diagnosed with the disease. Prostate cancer caught early is treatable, but there are no effective treatments for the cancer once it has spread, according to the researchers.
This article was reported by Ivanhoe.com, which offers Medical Alerts by e-mail every day of the week. To subscribe, click on: http://www.ivanhoe.com/newsalert/.
SOURCE: Nature, published online March 19, 2007
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