Uncovering how sodium ions in tumors can help diagnose and treat breast cancer

Up to now, breast cancer is still one of the leading causes of death in women. At present, researchers urgently need to find new imaging biomarkers indicating breast cancer. Recently, an article was published in the international journal British Journal of Cancer entitled "Sodium accumulation In breast cancer predicts malignancy and treatment response", scientists from the University of Cambridge and other institutions have found that analyzing sodium ion levels in breast cancer tumors may help to accurately indicate the aggressiveness of cancer and whether chemotherapy can play a role. Therapeutic effect. In the article, the researchers used a sodium magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technique to detect salt levels in mouse mammary tumors.

Using this technique, the researchers were able to analyze breast tumors and found that sodium ions were accumulating inside cancer cells, with more active tumors accumulating more sodium ions. The researchers then selected a set of 18 tumor samples for studied and targeted these tumors with chemotherapy, and when the tumors were scanned after a week of treatment, the researchers found that the levels of sodium ions in the chemotherapy-treated tumors decreased. There are currently around 55,920 new cases of breast cancer in the UK each year, and breast cancer is one of the leading causes of cancer deaths in women worldwide.

Imaging salt levels may be an important tool for diagnosing and monitoring breast cancer, and researchers are currently conducting an observational study to analyze whether the findings of this study also apply to human breast cancer patients. Researcher William Brackenbury, Ph.D., said: "We have known that solid tumors contain high levels of salt, but this study helps us further understand the mystery. The results of this study show that the high levels of sodium ions in breast cancer tumors come from cancer cells. cells rather than the surrounding tissue fluid, which means that their metabolic activity may behave strangely, causing cancer cells to accumulate more salt than normal healthy cells.

At present, there are only a few sodium MRI scanners in the United States, but this study provides a basis and ideas for their use in diagnosing breast cancer, monitoring the success rate of patient treatment, and improving the survival rate of cancer patients; researchers are also expected to develop new Drug to block sodium channels in cancer cells and slow tumor growth and spread Cancer progression in model organisms.

The researchers also wanted to explore new ways to improve the resolution of sodium MRI technology, which currently produces relatively mosaic images compared to normal MRI scans, so the researchers wanted to develop a new technique (such as Designing new radio frequency coils and associated cooling systems) to improve the signal quality of sodium imaging may help them further their research, including investigating whether sodium ion hotspots exist in the most actively growing tumors. Investigator Dr Fiona Gilbert said: "We are very excited to use these techniques in clinical practice. This very interesting study shows that the use of sodium MRI may be a potential new technique to improve breast cancer diagnosis, while also providing To help explain how breast cancer responds to therapy, these techniques can also be used to study other types of cancer. This study is only an early stage study. Later, before sodium MRI technology can benefit patients, researchers will need to A more in-depth study will be conducted to confirm.

Rapid and accurate diagnosis of breast cancer and close monitoring of patient response to therapy are important to ensure patients receive the best possible treatment, and this innovative early study of sodium MRI technology may help improve patient care. And to provide researchers with more information, the researchers hope to build on this study to better understand how it can benefit patients in the clinic, and researchers also need to investigate how breast cancer accumulates sodium, so that it can be Help discover new ways to treat this malignant disease.