Casting for the Cure

A study by an international team of researchers found that an experimental drug that stops blood vessels that feed tumors from forming was able, in a small number of patients, to slow down the progression of advanced thyroid cancer that has spread to other sites.

The study was the work of researchers from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, and colleagues in 10 other countries, and is published in today’s online issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

There are few treatment options for patients who have advanced metastatic thyroid cancer (where it has started to spread to other parts of the body) and the prognosis is generally poor. However, thyroid cancer is supported by a protein called VEGF (vascular endothelial growth factor) which helps blood vessels that feed the cancer tumour to grow, so the researchers were keen to find out if a new drug that blocks VEGF might help to slow tumors in thyroid cancer.

Lead author Dr Steven I Sherman, chair and professor of MD Anderson’s Department of Endocrine Neoplasia and Hormonal Disorders, explained the need to find effective treatments for advanced thyroid cancer:

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clinical trial will examine whether a new cancer treatment is as effective in humans as it’s proven to be in mice, say researchers at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, N.C.

The treatment involves transfusing white blood cells called granulocytes from healthy young donors — whose immune systems produce cells with high levels of cancer-fighting activity — into patients with advanced cancer.

A similar treatment using white blood cells from cancer-resistant mice cured 100 percent of lab mice with advanced cancer.

“In mice, we’ve been able to eradicate even highly aggressive forms of malignancy with extremely large tumors. Hopefully, we will see the same results in humans. Our laboratory studies indicate that this cancer-fighting ability is even stronger in healthy humans,” lead researcher Zheng Cui, associate professor of pathology, said in a prepare statement.

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