Scientists find trigger behind spread of cancer

LONDON - Scientists have cracked one of the secrets behind the spread of cancer — a protein that helps the disease thrive and spread through the body, besides aiding its return post treatment.

The breakthrough opens the way to drugs and better ways of picking out the most dangerous tumours, the Journal of Clinical Investigation reports.

Cancer claims more than 150,000 lives a year in Britain alone, according to the Daily Mail.

The research team, from the National Institutes of Health in Maryland, US, showed that a protein called CPE-delta N tends to occur in large amounts in the most dangerous liver tumours.

Tests on samples taken from 99 men and women with liver cancer showed that when the amount of CPE-delta N in the tumour was more than double that in the surrounding tissue, the cancer was highly likely to return or spread within two years.

Researchers accurately predicted the cancer’s spread or return in more than 90 percent of cases, including some that were missed by existing techniques such as microscopy and scans.

Alan Guttmacher, director of the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development in the US, said: “Testing for CPE-delta N, if combined with existing diagnostic methods, offers the possibility of more accurately estimating the chances that a cancer will spread.”