Breakthroughs in Cancer research depends on thinking outside of the box while using new technology and old findings.  Finding a cure for Cancer is an ongoing process that takes into account analysis old data in a more innovative way.  One such new thinking process about how Cancer survives in the body is the process of autophagy.

According to Dr. Ravi Amaravadi from the University of Pennsylvania Abramson Cancer Center, the available evidence suggests that autophagy "seems to be a process that could be important in many cancers."  To define autophagy, observation of the molecular and biological activity of cancer cells most take precedence.  Autophagy is when cancer cells are buried deep in the core of a tumor where they have little availability of oxygen.  This enables the cells growth to be hampened from the nutrients from the blood vessels that feed the tumor it resides.

As the buried cells begin to suffocate or find themselves desperate for survival, they start eating themselves to sustain living.  Ironically, normal cells depend on autophagy to maintain the health of the body during stress.  One of the issues with the success of chemotherapy and radiation is that cancer cells use auophagy to ward off the effects of the procedures.

The process of autophagy activation in a tumor or parts of the body, Dr. John Cleveland of The Scripps Research Institute expresses that it is "an intrinsic cell-survival mechanism that cancer cells turn on to recoup essential building blocks when they're being poisoned or irradiated."  This is an understanding about cancer cells that have researchers investigating blocking autophagy can make cancer treatment more effective.  The key to the growth of cancer maybe in cutting off the ability for autophagy to find the escape route of eating itself to duplicate and or become a larger mass.

The National Cancer Institute Bulletin contains the complete article from which this summary of an article is drawn in its September 7, 2010 issue in which that bulletin states, 'A number of clinical trials testing autophagy inhibition are actively recruiting patients with a variety of cancers, including breast, colorectal, myeloma, and chronic lymphocytic leukemia. They are testing an off-patent drug called hydroxychloroquine, or HCQ. The largest trial to date involving HCQ is for patients with newly diagnosed glioblastoma multiforme, a brain cancer. There is also a Phase I/II trial testing authophagy inhibition in patients with stage II or III pancreatic cancer.'

For further information on other medical conditions and or research by the author, view articles below.

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http://expertscolumn.com/content/childhood-retinoblatoma

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