Experimental agent reduces breast cancer metastasis to bone
Tuesday, November 3, 2009 - 13:49
in Health & Medicine
Researchers have reduced breast cancer metastasis to bone using an experimental agent to inhibit ROCK, a protein that was found to be over-expressed in metastatic breast cancer. In a study in mice, the team of researchers from Tufts University School of Medicine, the Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences at Tufts, and Tufts Medical Center report that inhibiting ROCK, or Rho-associated kinase, in the earliest stages of breast cancer decreased metastatic tumor mass in bone by 77 percent and overall frequency of metastasis by 36 percent. The results suggest that ROCK may be a target for new drug therapies to reduce breast cancer metastasis.