Study links inflammation with prostate cancer metastasis

Reported by Susan Aldridge, PhD, medical journalist

Inflammation appears to play a role in the metastasis of prostate cancer.
Inflammation is part of the normal protective immune response. But it also plays a part in many diseases. Now researchers at the University of California, San Diego, suggest that inflammation could be important in the spread of prostate cancer.

Previous research has not been able to establish what determines metastasis - the spread of cancer, sometimes years after diagnosis. In this study, which used mouse models of prostate cancer, a protein called IKK was shown to influence a gene called Maspin, which has anti-metastatic activity. They also found that production of Maspin was repressed by events triggered by inflammatory cells, resulting in the spread of prostate cancer cells. This new link between inflammatory pathways and the promotion of cancer spread is worthy of further investigation. These new findings correlate well with what is already known of the progression of cancer - high levels of Maspin are expressed at an early stage, lower levels at a later stage. Finding ways of increasing the levels of Maspin in cancer may open the door to new drugs that can block prostate cancer metastasis.

Source
Nature online 19th March 2007

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