Cachexia: Cancer-Related Wasting Condition Halted By Antibody
Monday, July 14, 2014 - 05:22
in Health & Medicine
Cachexia is a profound wasting of fat and muscle occurring in about half of all cancer patients, raising their risk of death. Many strategies have been tried to reverse the condition, which may cause such frailty that patients can't endure potentially life-saving treatments, but none have had great success. Researchers recently demonstrated that, in mice bearing lung tumors, their symptoms of cachexia improved or were prevented when given an antibody that blocked the effects of a protein, PTHrP, secreted by the tumor cells. PTHrP stands for parathyroid hormone-related protein, and is known to be released from many types of cancer cells. read more