Can we kill cancer cells when they're sleeping?

"go to sleep", to evolve and become stronger when you wake up.

Cancer is always thought of as tumors or cells that grow rapidly and uncontrollably. But now this view may be wrong. Evidence from new research shows that cancer knows how to halt its development, interspersed with times of outbreaks to survive.

This reinforces the danger of the disease, even in remission . A cancer patient may be happy after the treatment kills cancer cells that are active and shrinks the tumor to the point that it cannot be detected by routine testing.

They think that they have reached a level of near illness. But actually, cancer cells only "go to sleep" . And in that sleep, they will evolve to become stronger when they wake up.

If you monitor the growth of prostate cancer tumor over the years, you get a graph that looks like this:

Cancer tumor size over time.

The chart shows the rapid growth stages of prostate cancer cells alternating with inactivity time.

In the above example, the tumor has continued to grow to the point where symptoms begin to appear. After that, the patient seeks treatment - usually surgery to remove the tumor. This treatment is usually effective but for some unfortunate patients, their cancer will return.

At this time, the next treatment is usually the use of chemotherapy and hormone therapy. But even these treatments cannot stop cancer. For some patients, cancer will recur after a period of inactivity.

During the 'sleep' period of cancer , which can last up to several years, the patient will often have no symptoms and conventional diagnostic tools will no longer scan the tumor.

Until now, doctors and scientists still know very little about these sleep stages of cancer. However, new research has shown that the stage of cancer sleep is also an important time for tumor progression later.

"Sleep" cancer tumors to become stronger.

The danger of cancer remission

To understand why the sleep stage is necessary for the development of cancer cells in the future, we need to examine the factors that can prevent tumor progression. Cancer cells that want to survive and grow will face three main challenges.

First, they need to deceive the body's immune system which is capable of removing most tumors. Second, they need to survive after anti-cancer drugs and interventions. Finally, they need to spread to other organs in the body.

A sleep phase is essential for cancer to meet all these challenges. During periods of inactivity, cancer cells reshape their genetic structure, and are ready for the next stage of development.

Without sleep, cancer cells will not evolve to survive in a new environment, or should be resistant to immune system attacks. Therefore, it is important to treat cancer now to detect inactive cells and find ways to destroy them as soon as they are sleeping.

Currently, the detection of sleeping cancer cells is not easy. Inactive tumors are usually small and do not produce symptoms, so patients are often unaware of them and common diagnostic tools cannot "see" them.

In addition, inactive cancer cells are often in slow metabolism, like hibernating animals. Therefore, even some sophisticated diagnostic techniques, such as PET scans, often ignore inactive tumors.

Some anti-inflammatory drugs can prevent cancer cells from waking up.

Detection and treatment

So how do we detect these dangerous but sleeping cancer cells? Studies are trying to elucidate the properties of inactive cancer cells. For example, they look at the RNAs generated by inactive and proliferating cancer cells.

RNA is a very important molecule that carries genetic information from DNA to the proteins of cells. Scientists have shown that inactive cancer cells will express some specific RNA. These RNAs can be found in blood or urine. Therefore, they are trying to develop a diagnostic tool to detect these molecules.

Once cancer cells have not been identified, they need to be destroyed. Unfortunately, because these cancer cells are not metabolic, they are less likely to be killed by conventional chemotherapy. Therefore, targeting them is difficult. Difficult, but hopefully not without.

New studies show that inactive cancer cells also have weaknesses. For example, experiments have shown that some anti-inflammatory drugs can prevent inactive cancer cells from creating metastasis.

If these results are confirmed by clinical trials, we will soon be able to provide treatments that specifically target inactivated cancer cells, helping cancer patients avoid the disease. Because only can be relieved now.