A substantial fraction of patients develop overt metastases soon after resection of primary breast tumours, but the cause of this metastatic relapse remains undefined. In a mouse model of tumour dormancy, Krall et al. show that the surgical wounding required for tumour resection induces a systemic inflammatory response that can trigger the outgrowth of breast cancer tumours at distant anatomical sites, which was otherwise restricted by a tumour-specific T cell response. Perioperative treatment of the mice with the anti-inflammatory drug meloxicam significantly reduced tumour growth.
References
Krall, J. A. et al. The systemic response to surgery triggers the outgrowth of distant immune-controlled tumors in mouse models of dormancy. Sci. Transl Med. 10, eaan3464 (2018)10.1126/scitranslmed.aan3464
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Crunkhorn, S. Preventing metastatic relapse. Nat Rev Drug Discov 17, 394 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrd.2018.78
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrd.2018.78