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Well, surprise surprise, chemotherapy isn’t good for you.  No, not just because it is astronomically expensive, involves hellish symptoms, and is frequently ineffective.  A new study has revealed that cancer cells actually avoid chemotherapy by becoming dormant.

Clever little tumors!  Toronto Scientists believe this is why relapse is so common.

Read the article for more specific information, but here’s a little highlight for what the scientists beleive is happening:

“Dick, whose team grew human colorectal cancers in mice for the research, says only one in every several thousand cells in a tumour can actually drive its growth.

And many of these tumour drivers are susceptible to chemotherapies because most of the drugs now used in cancer treatment target cells that multiply at abnormal speeds — a signature of the disease in all its forms.

But if some of these stem-cell-like cancer drivers are dormant — in effect hiding their ability to rapidly replicate — the drugs will pass them over.

“Some of (the cancer driver cells) are actually quite sensitive (to chemotherapy) and other ones, particularly those ones that come from these so-called dormant cells are much more resistant,” Dick says.

“And that can be responsible for relapse.””

For more information regarding the driving force of cancer and other non-traditional, albeit highly effective ways to stop it, give this article a read.

Sources:

The Star: Cancer cells hide by going dormant, Princess Margaret study finds