Scientists develop a cocktail of drugs which ‘destroy cells that fuel cancer tumours’
Combination of drugs targets the stem cells that help the disease grow and spread — and scientists hope the breakthrough treatment will work for a variety of cancers
SCIENTISTS have developed a treatment killing the cells which fuel cancer and make it return.
The combination of drugs targets the stem cells that help the disease grow and spread.
These are resistant to chemotherapy and radiotherapy which kill other “normal” tumour cells.
A team at Japan’s Riken institute cleared mice of blood cancer acute myeloid leukaemia.
They hope the treatment will work for a variety of cancers.
They could also be used to halt the spread of the disease through the body.
This is the most common cause of death in the 163,000 cancer patients who die each year.
The most difficult problem with AML is disease relapse — which occurs in a majority of patients being treated with chemotherapy.