Force Cancer Charity: Working locally to support anyone affected by cancer

An investigation into the mechanisms involved in the formation of brain metastases

Approximately one third of patients with lung cancer will develop a brain metastasis (i.e. secondary tumour) in the brain and these are an increasingly important cause of mortality.  For these to form, some of the lung cancer cells from the primary tumour must detach and travel through the blood stream to the brain where the tumour cells need to cross the endothelial cells lining blood vessels and then invade the brain, coming into contact with astrocytes (the main supporting cells of the brain). During the formation of a metastasis, tumour cells induce changes in the surrounding tissue by secreting chemical messengers. However, the specific biological processes that allow metastases to form are largely unknown. Thus, this research involves investigating factors released from cultured lung tumour cells and examining their effect on both brain astrocytes and endothelial cells to see if the lung tumour cells induce changes in these cells. Excitingly, it appears that the lung tumour cells do secrete factors which influence both astrocytes and endothelial cells and the identity of these factors is currently being investigated. Clearly, if we can find out the mechanisms involved at the cellular level then hopefully we can design ways of reducing secondary tumour growth in the brain.