Starving tumors of blood supply may pose risks, says study

Filed under: Chemotherapy

A new study in mice suggests that a way of starving tumors of their blood supply may cause heart attacks and strokes. This study raises concerns about this type of cancer therapy according to the researchers at UCLA.

Drugs that block blood vessel growth, such as Avastin, do so from the outside of the cell by blocking vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), a signaling protein.

In the study, Luisa Irula-Arispe and her team bred mice that lacked VEGF in endothelial cells. The team did not use drugs to block the VEGF. More than half of the mice in their study suffered heart attacks and fatal strokes and even those that lived became ill. Irula-Arispe said that signaling inside the cell is different that signaling outside the cell. She said it is not clear if such drugs as Avastin are dangerous., although she believes that researchers should try to find a more targeted way of getting the drug to the tumor. Currently Avastin and other such drugs are infused, and therefore circulate through the patient's whole body.

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[Source: The Cancer Blog]