January 23, 2017 – New Insight into Origin of Stomach Cancer

It has been previously accepted that gastric cancer follows the damage and subsequent loss of acid-secreting cells in the stomach, but recent studies published in Gastroenterology by researchers at the Washington University School of Medicine and the Siteman Cancer Center of Barnes-Jewish Hospital challenged that paradigm. In a mouse model, the researchers found that damage to those acid-secreting cells, on its own, is not sufficient to transform the cells of the stomach into cancerous cells. While it was thought that the dying cancer cells were providing the signal to nearby cells to drive precancerous metaplasia, the results suggest that the signals are coming from somewhere else, according to Joseph Barclaff, a doctoral student in the lab of Jason C. Mills, MD, PhD, a professor of medicine in the division of Gastroenterology. Understanding the mechanism behind the development of metaplasia will, argues Dr. Mills, make it “more likely we’ll be able to interrupt the cascade and prevent stomach cancer.”
Stomach Cancer Overview
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