“When the patient is asleep, the tumor wakes up,” summed up the situation by ETI professor of molecular oncology Nikolas Aceto.
Cancer cells that will later lead to its metastases breast cancerappear and become more aggressive mainly at night at bedtime.
This is the unexpected conclusion of a new scientific study in Switzerland, led by a Greek diaspora scientist.
THE Breast cancer is one of the most common forms of cancer and, according to the World Health Organization, approximately 2.3 million new diagnoses are made worldwide each year.
If this cancer is detected early, patients usually respond well to treatment. But if cancer metastasizes, things become much more difficult. Metastases are responsible for up to 90% of all cancer deaths.
Metastases occur when cancer cells break down from the original tumor, travel through the body through blood vessels (as individual cells or in groups of two or more cells), and form new tumors in other organs.
To date, scientists have not paid much attention to the question of when tumors form metastatic cells, believing that this happens on a continuous basis 24 hours a day.
But new research reveals that in fact the onset of metastases occurs mainly or is accelerated during nighttime sleep.
Researchers at the Federal Institute of Technology (ETI) in Zurich, led by Dr. Zoe Diamantopoulouwhich made the relevant publication in the scientific journal Naturestudied the issue in 30 women with cancer and in animals (mice) with similar cancer.
It was confirmed that in all cases the original tumors created much more metastatic cancer cells at bedtime (about 80% of the total cancer cells circulating in the blood).
Although an increase in circulating cancer cells does not necessarily lead to metastasis (as many of these motor cells die in the bloodstream), the so-called circadian rhythm of sleep-wake appears to directly affect the spread of cancer. .
“Our research shows that the escape of circulating cancer cells from the original tumor is controlled by hormones such as melatonin, which determine our rhythms day and night,” said Dr. Diamantopoulou. “When the patient is asleep, the tumor wakes up,” summed up the situation by ETI professor of molecular oncology Nikolas Aceto.
The cells that “escape” at night from the initial tumor in the breast, separate and multiply faster, than the cells that do something similar during the day, thus having a greater chance of creating metastases in other organs.
Something else was also found: that the time the doctor takes samples from the tumor or blood can affect the oncologists’ findings. Samples taken at different times of the day have very different levels of cancer cells, much to the researchers’ surprise. In other words, the biology of cancer changes over the course of 24 hours, responding to the biorhythms of the human body.
The next step for scientists will be to understand how these findings can be used in existing anti-cancer therapies to further improve them. Patients are more likely to respond more successfully if cancer treatments are given at specific times. Also to be investigated is whether the findings apply to other forms of cancer besides breast tumors.
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