Researchers at the Marie Curie Institute have said that they now understand how melanoma spreads to other parts of the body. They feel that this information can help in uncovering how other cancers metastasize.
A gene called MITF controls a switching mechanism inside the malignant cell. It seems that MITF levels determine whether the cell is dividing, proliferating, forming a tumor, or whether it goes into a non-dividing state, which becomes highly invasive. The researchers were surprised and assumed that the dividing cells would become invasive.
Chemotherapy goes after dividing cells so researchers think that these non-dividing cells are the dangerous ones that lead to metastasis to other organs.
1. I was recently diagnosed with skin care and am glad tro see it is still being looked into. Another good read on the subject is:
http://skincarecompany.net/skin-cancer.htm
The 1 thing I have learned from this is to always wear sunscreen. Even on cloudy days!
Posted at 3:44PM on Jan 16th 2007 by Sandra