Injecting oxygen into cancerous tumours significantly boosts the chances of recovery, a ground-breaking study has revealed.
Scientists at Oxford University found slightly increasing the supply strengthened blood vessels in cancer cells, making chemotherapy more effective.
Cells which are damaged and weak had a constricted oxygen supply and were less sensitive to radiotherapy treatments, in a series of experiments on mice.
Ground-breaking: Slightly increasing the oxygen supply could strengthen blood vessels in breast cancer cells like these
The team behind the breakthrough hailed it as an ‘exciting’ development which would allow drugs to ‘soften up’ tumours before they are targeted with strong treatments.
Scientists had previously tried to starve tumours of oxygen, believing a more stable blood supply would only help the cancer spread.
Professor Gillies McKenna, director of the UK-MRC Gray Institute for Radiation Oncology & Biology, said: ‘We are very excited to have uncovered this brand new approach to cancer treatment where the drugs prime the cancer cells for radiotherapy.
‘You might expect that by increasing an oxygen supply to tumour cells you would help them grow. But actually by oxygenating the cell with a better blood supply we enable radiotherapy and chemotherapy to do a better job of killing them.’
The research is published today in the journal Cancer Today and includes tests on breast, head and neck cancers as well as carcinomas on the skin and major organs.
Scientists tested the effects of four drugs which are in clinical use or under development for cancer therapy.
The drugs were given to the mice at doses which did not alter tumour growth but the effects of the drugs acted to increase the blood supply to the tumours.
An early trial in human patients with pancreatic cancer, which is notoriously difficult to treat has also been positive, Professor McKenna said.
He added: ‘Previous work by our group had shown that treatment with some of these types of drugs could improve radiotherapy, but it was not understood how. Now with the new understanding, strategies could be developed to use these drugs to ‘soften up’ tumour cells before treating them with radiotherapy.’
Dr Lesley Walker, Cancer Research UK’s director of cancer information, said: ‘For a long time scientists have been looking for ways to boost the oxygen supply to tumours to improve response to treatment and make radiotherapy even more effective.
‘We still need to do more work on this technique but boosting the effects of radiotherapy and chemotherapy are very exciting developments that hold real potential for use in patients.’
