Multimodal approach best for treating some breast cancers.

2002 SEP 12 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- by Sonia Nichols, senior medical writer - Doctors in Germany have prescribed a multilevel approach for banishing the expression of proteins that contribute to breast cancer pathogenesis.

Treatment regimens combining antiangiogenic therapy, hyperthermia, chemotherapy, and irradiation may be best for treating some breast cancers, according to Oliver Scmitt and colleagues, who work at the Medical University of Lubeck in Lubeck, Germany.

Such regimens would counteract the effects of hypoxia and other factors on proangiogenic and antiapoptotic protein and gene expression, according to the investigators, who studied the results of the proscribed therapies in immune-deficient mice implanted with MX1 hormone-receptor-negative human breast cancer tumors.

"Concerning vascularization, the most prominent changes were seen in the expression of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF), which increased strongly after hypoxia," Schmitt and coauthors stated. "The other cytokines, adhesion and extracellular matrix (ECM) molecules, were either little affected or unaffectd by the therapy," they noted.

Tumor vessels bore many openings after therapy induction, taking on sinusoidal characteristics, according to the researchers.

An alternate arm of their study focused on apoptosis. "Tumor cells again exerted the strongest differences after hypoxia where c-myc was clearly enhanced, whereas the effects of p53, bcl-2, ...