Research has recently shown yet another common thread in breast cancer patients, one that is significant and credible enough that it seems as though research is almost about to crack the breast cancer code and be able to formulate (we all hope) much better therapies other than the incredibly destructive and life altering treatment for breast cancer, chemotherapy and radiation, the former being the worst as we all know.  Especially with the news that chemotherapy does not help most breast cancer patients, it is imperative that the treatments for breast cancer receive more attention than just simply cracking the code behind why women get breast cancer. 

The significant finding this time is that the IKBKE breast cancer gene has multiple copies of itself in women with breast cancer, whereas this genetic code is only found up to twice in most other women.  Sounds confusing, huh?  That’s why I hope I’m explaining this right!  It is confusing, and most of the research that happens in breast cancer today is somewhat confusing and even contradictory at times, which is why it is important to remember that this research doesn’t necessarily apply in every single distinct case.

These IKBKE cells most likely begin to randomly duplicate themselves as breast cancer forms in the body, at least that is what researchers are hypothesizing right now, since the discovery is still so new.  That’s the tricky part, the cells begin to just spontaneously begin to multiply with no reason in breast cancer patients, and even also in patients with other types of cancer, without being inherited from parents. 

The trick is to try to starve these cancer cells by depriving them of a specific protein that they need to survive, and that may be the new key to fighting breast cancer, if they can only figure out why this spontaneous copying of the cell happens with no logical cause (as of yet, remember we are in an age of highly advanced science right now, and the answer could literally be right around the corner for all we know). 

Although several genes have been identified that can raise an individual’s risk of getting breast cancer, this newest finding is promising because it suggests there may be a controllable variable in breast cancer that no one has thought of yet. 

This entry was posted on June 23, 2007 at 10:57 am. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Posted in Breast Cancer Prevention by Breast News Girl No Comments Yet