New York Study Finds That Chemotherapy Can Backfire by Making Cancer More Aggressive!
Nikhil Prasad Fact checked by:Thailand Medical News Team Jul 07, 2025 7 months, 3 weeks, 4 days, 22 hours, 29 minutes ago
Medical News: New research is raising serious concerns about a standard cancer treatment—chemotherapy—suggesting that in some cases, it might actually make cancer worse instead of better. Scientists from Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Weill Cornell Medicine, and Montefiore Medical Center in the United States have discovered that certain chemotherapy drugs used to treat breast cancer can cause the disease to spread and become more aggressive.
New York Study Finds That Chemotherapy Can Backfire by Making Cancer More Aggressive
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Medical News report highlights findings that could reshape how breast cancer is treated in the future. Although chemotherapy has long been used to shrink tumors before surgery, this new study reveals that it might also activate a repair mechanism in the body, making it easier for cancer cells to escape from their original site and travel through the bloodstream to other parts of the body. These traveling cells often lead to deadly metastatic tumors, especially in organs like the lungs.
How Chemotherapy May Open Pathways for Cancer Spread
The research focused on a specific biological process involving TMEM (tumor microenvironment of metastasis) structures. These TMEM sites act like tiny doorways that cancer cells can use to enter blood vessels. The study found that chemotherapy can significantly increase both the number and activity of these TMEM doorways, making it easier for cancer to migrate.
Lead researcher Dr. George Karagiannis and his team observed this effect in both human breast cancer patients and in mice. In 20 women undergoing pre-surgical chemotherapy using two common drugs—doxorubicin and cyclophosphamide—the number of TMEM doorways in tumor tissue increased. Similarly, in mice, chemotherapy caused more cancer cells to circulate in the body and reach the lungs.
Even more alarming, researchers noticed that while chemotherapy effectively shrank tumors at the original site, it simultaneously made it easier for cancer to spread elsewhere. This paradox raises important questions about the safety of administering chemotherapy before surgery in some breast cancer patients.
Potential Solutions and Next Steps
The good news is that the scientists also identified ways to counter this dangerous side effect. A drug called rebastinib, which blocks a key protein involved in TMEM activity (TIE2), was shown to reduce the number of TMEM doorways and stop cancer cells from spreading. Genetic strategies like silencing the MENA gene, which is linked to cell movement and metastasis, also proved effective.
Dr. Karagiannis suggests that doctors could monitor patients mid-treatment by taking small samples of tumor tissue to check for signs of increased TMEM activity. If those signs appear, doctors might reconsider continuing chemotherapy before surgery and instead perform surgery earlier, followed by chemo afterward.
A New Understanding of Chemotherapy’s Risks
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This study opens a crucial conversation about how chemotherapy should be used. While it remains an important cancer treatment, its unintended ability to promote metastasis in some cases means patients may need more personalized care. By combining chemotherapy with TMEM inhibitors or adjusting treatment timing, doctors may be able to reduce the risk of cancer spreading.
The study findings were published in the peer reviewed journal: Science Translational Medicine.
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/scitranslmed.aan0026
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