Why can cancer get caught?

The risk of curing cancer patients is always haunting that the disease can recur and destroy their bodies again. In a recent study, scientists have explained this phenomenon.

Cancer can recur

Some cancers can recur after a few years, even tens of years when they are cured. Scientists at the Cancer Research Institute in London say that some cancer cells have the ability to 'hibernate' to avoid the effects of chemotherapy; A few years later, they can wake up and rage the patient's body.

Cancer cells - Artwork: Shutterstock

This study is considered quite unique because scientists have examined blood and bone marrow samples of a patient with a rare type of leukemia . Two samples were collected over 20 years apart.

The first sample was analyzed when the patient was 4 years old. Sample two analyzes at the time of cancer recurrence, when the patient was 25 years old, about 22 years later.

Without the chemotherapy , cancer cells will gather new mutations to grow again, said Professor Mel Greaves, the head of the research program.

They identified a mutant form in cancer cells in two blood samples 22 years apart. Accordingly, two genes called BCR and ABL1 have been combined.

These findings are expected to help develop treatments that can eradicate cancer cells, thereby preventing recurrence .