NEWSBRIEF: STARTLING REVELATION ABOUT BREAST CANCER RESEARCH

[Guest guest]

Amazing . . .

 

(Cancer Decisions News Staff)

 

Ralph W. Moss, Ph.D. Weekly CancerDecisions.com

Newsletter #358 09/21/08

 

NEWSBRIEF: STARTLING REVELATION ABOUT BREAST CANCER RESEARCH

 

This week, the online life sciences magazine The Scientist published an

article whose implications for breast cancer research are profound.

Tumor cell lines - living cells taken from tumors and cultured in the

laboratory - are the mainstay of cancer research at the most fundamental

level, and are used as the model for studying tumor behavior and

response to treatment. For the past 25 years, most of the laboratory

research into metastatic breast cancer has been based on a single breast

tumor cell line known as MDA-MB-435. At least 650 papers have been

published on studies involving this cell line. Yet it has been revealed

that this supposed breast cancer cell line may in fact not be composed

of breast cancer cells at all. Instead, it appears that the cells are

derived from melanoma. For 25 years, therefore, breast cancer research

using this cell line - and it is one of the most widely used - has been

based on an incorrect model. Melanoma-derived tumor cells are not

biologically equivalent to breast cancer cells; they have different

molecular and genetic characteristics.

Cell lines - even when correctly sourced and identified - are an

intrinsically flawed model, and in the past I have often cautioned

against the tendency to read too much into the results of cancer

research done on tumor cell lines. The inferential leap from Petri dish

to living human cancer patient is simply too large: an enormous number

of drugs and experimental techniques show significant activity in

cultured cancer cell lines, only to exhibit no benefit whatever when

given to human subjects in a clinical setting. Furthermore, cell lines

can degenerate over time, becoming genetically unstable. But these are

relatively small concerns compared to the discovery that MDA-MB-435, the

cornerstone of breast cancer research, is not breast cancer at all.

 

We are constantly being reminded that this is the era of evidence-based

medicine. But if the very cell lines which have provided the foundation

for breast cancer research for the past quarter century have now been

conclusively shown to be melanoma cells, not breast cancer, how solid or

trustworthy is the evidence on which current breast cancer treatment is

based? Evidence built on such flawed foundations more closely resembles

hearsay than science.

 

A Case of Mistaken Identity by Megan Scudellari. The Scientist,

September 16th 2008

http://www.the-scientist.com/news/display/55013/ (registration required)

 

NEW REPORT LAUNCHED THIS WEEK

This week we are launching a new report in our Cancer Decisions©

series - The Radiation Treatment of Gynecological Cancers. (This report

covers radiation for ovarian, endometrial, cervical and vaginal

cancers.)

You can purchase and download a copy of this useful new report by

clicking here:

http://www.cancerdecisions.com/mrstore/index.php?main_page=product_info & cPath=81\

& products_id=620