Aspirin may help counteract impact of obesity on cancer

Aspirin can counter the ill effects of obesity on cancer development, according to a study that may pave the way for new therapies to prevent the deadly disease in those at risk.

Obesity is a known risk factor for certain types of cancer, including colon, pancreatic and breast cancer. Studies have shown its role in promoting tumour growth and malignant progression. However, its role in cancer initiation has been uncertain.

"Epithelial" cells lining the surfaces of organs have the intrinsic ability to remove potentially malignant cells from their midst. This is called the "epithelial defense against cancer" mechanism. Normally, the cells sense harmful cells and push them out by the process called cell competition.

To study how obesity affects this defense mechanism, researchers bred mice that were designed to express a known cancer-inducing mutant protein called Ras Epithelial cells usually remove the potentially malignant Ras-transformed cells.

Feeding the Ras mice high-fat diets, which resulted in severe obesity, suppressed the defense mechanism and therefore increased the number of Ras-transformed cells remaining in the tissue.

This suppression was seen in the intestine and pancreas, but not in the lungs. Furthermore, a month later the Ras-transformed cells developed a tumor in the pancreas of mice with the high-fat diet.

The result supports previous correlations made between intestinal and pancreatic cancer and obesity, but not lung cancer.

Following experiments using the mice model and cultured cells revealed that fatty acids and chronic inflammation cause the suppression of the defense mechanism.

When mice fed a high-fat diet were treated with aspirin, known for its anti-inflammatory properties, the defense mechanism was substantially enhanced. This implies that reinforcing the epithelial defense mechanism with anti-inflammatory drugs could be utilised for cancer prevention.

"This is the first report to show that obesity and chronic inflammation can influence competitive interaction between normal cells and transformed cells. It implies other factors such as infection, smoking, sleeping patterns and aging may also affect cell competition," said the author.

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New test enables early diagnosis of liver cancer

Scientists  have developed a new test that can distinguish early liver cancer cells from nearly identical normal liver cells by giving them a distinctive red-brown hue.

The inability to definitively tell the difference between them often means the disease is detected late when treatment options are less effective.

There is no definitive test for early diagnosis of liver cancer. Our test adds a level of comfort for making the diagnosis," said the lead author of the study. Early liver cancer is mostly silent. By the time it's large enough to cause classic symptoms such as abdominal pain and weight loss, the cancer cells look distinctive but the liver is failing.

The myriad of treatment options - from removing the diseased portion of the liver to liver transplants to freezing or heating cancer cells - have a high chance of failing as well, he said.

He began collaborating with expertise in cell and tissue testing, to develop a probe that gives cancer cells the distinctive red-brown hue.

The probe detects and stains a microRNA called mir-21, which is found in liver cancer but not healthy liver cells,he said. Unlike RNA, microRNA doesn't make proteins rather helps control proteins that are expressed by RNA. That means it's more stable and can survive harsh chemicals normally used to prepare the biopsy for microscopic evaluation.

For the study, they used their probe on biopsies of 10 healthy livers and 10 livers with early cancers. In every case of liver cancer, the biopsy took on the red-brown hue. The probe was not detected in normal cells. The studies were done retrospectively, so they already knew which patients ultimately were diagnosed with cancer. They are now using the test on 200 similar cases of liver cancer.

The group also is exploring this approach in other hard-to-detect-early cancers. This Dr. worked with a pathology resident to identify microRNAs selectively expressed in melanoma. Under the microscope, the potentially deadly skin cancer cells look a lot like common mole cells. 

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