Breast cancer: Common drugs may halt post-surgery relapse

[donocco]

It may not be the surgery. Way back when, a researcher famous now in cancer immunology, Judah Folkman, realized this with his mice with Lewis tumour, a type of lung cancer. He couldnt understand why the mice who had an operation on the primary tumour died more quickly than the ones who didnt.

He soon found ouyt why. Yes the primary tumour spread metastatic cells, but they were also producing proteins that inhibited angiogenesis to preven these very cells from growing. Perhaps the primary cancer cells "saw"(sorry for the anthropomorphism) the mets as competitors for available nutrients. As soon as the primary cancer was removed, the production of these anti-angiogenic proteins stopped and the mets spread quickly. This is in mice but possibly in humans.

If NSAID drugs like Asprin Motrin and Indocin can inhibit this, maybe taking such a drug with a doctors prescription should be standard therapy. Let the longer survival times be the "proof."

Paul