Finding liver cancer early and reversing its course
- Date:
- April 21, 2015
- Source:
- Georgetown University Medical Center
- Summary:
- Liver cancer is often lethal in humans because it is diagnosed in late stages, but new work in animal models has identified a potential diagnostic biomarker of the disease and a potential way to reverse the damage done.
- Share:
Liver cancer is often lethal in humans because it is diagnosed in late stages, but new work in animal models has identified a potential diagnostic biomarker of the disease and a potential way to reverse the damage done. The study will be presented at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting 2015 in Philadelphia.
Ying Fu, PhD, of Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center explains this new work:
"Hepatocellular carcinoma, the most common form of liver cancer, remains the third leading cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide due to a lack of biomarkers for early detection and rapid fatality shortly after diagnosis.
"In this work, we demonstrate that a damaged lesion (γ-OH-Acr-dG) on a DNA base (guanine) is correlated with the development of hepatocellular carcinoma in two mouse models. It has the potential to serve as a biomarker for early detection of hepatocellular carcinoma.
"Furthermore, polyphenon E, a formulation of green tea extract containing antioxidant catechins (plant metabolites) showed the most potent effect to suppress the lesion. More importantly, 86 percent of the mice on the polyphenon E diet appeared to have complete protection from tumor development."
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