Breast cancer therapy found

Did you know that healthy breast cells naturally protect themselves from cancer?


Sounds simple enough, and by exploiting this innate ability, a new study introduces a homegrown way to stop cancer cell growth without damaging normal cells.

Healthy people produce up to 1,000 abnormal cells every day – often right in the face of normal cells. Luckily, our tumor surveillance system gets rid of these cancer-prone cells before they become a problem.

California researchers discovered that healthy breasts produce a small protein called interleukin-25 (IL-25). These actively seek out those cancer-prone cells and instruct them to self-destruct – just another one of our innate defense mechanisms.

1. They identified several molecules produced by normal breast cells that fight cancer, with the most powerful being IL-25.
2. They injected the protein into mice with human breast tumors, and one month later, these tumors were three-times smaller than those in mice injected with a placebo.
3. Using human breast cells grown in a culture, they found that cancer cells die off in the presence of IL-25 because those cells have a specific receptor that normal cells don’t.
4. They looked at hundreds of tumors from breast cancer patients and found that almost all of the malignant cells displayed those specific IL-25 receptors not found on healthy ones.

• The IL-25 receptor is docked on the surface of malignant breast cancer cells and signals ‘destroy me’ to IL-25. This self-destruction process allows IL-25 to kill cancer cells without affecting the growth of healthy ones.