Test Points to Aggressive Cervical Cancer
— Robert Preidt
(HealthDay News) —
Researchers have found a new means of spotting tough-to-treat cervical cancers.
A team from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis says cervical malignancies that take up a lot of blood sugar (glucose) are more resistant to treatment than cervical cancers with a lower glucose uptake.
“We found that the tumors with higher uptake were associated with lower survival rates and lower disease-free survival rates,” radiation oncologist Dr. Perry W. Grigsby said in a prepared statement.
He added that, “cervical tumors vary more in their glucose uptake than other kinds of cancer, making glucose uptake a very useful indicator for cervical cancers.”
The study included 96 cervical cancer patients who had positron emission tomography (PET) scans before they received radiation and chemotherapy treatment. High glucose-uptake tumors can be identified with (PET) scans.
PET scans can reveal glucose uptake by a tumor by scanning the amount of radioactive glucose tracer absorbed by the cancer cells. The use of PET in this study indicates that this technology can be used to better determine prognosis in cervical cancer patients, the researchers said.
Grigsby wants to identify the cellular mechanisms that are altered in tumors with high glucose uptake.
“I’ve looked at the proteins that transport glucose into tumor cells, and I haven’t seen any significant differences between the glucose transporters in tumors with high glucose uptake and those with low glucose uptake,” he said.
“So we’re taking a different approach. We’re going to biopsy tumors over the course of treatment. Then we’ll look for which genes change activity during treatment. If we can find predictable changes, they may lead us to better treatments for the more resistant cervical cancers,” he said.
The findings appear in the April issue of the journal Gynecological Oncology.
SOURCE: Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, news release, March 30, 2006