TORONTO (June 1, 2005) – Early surgical removal of the spleen
combined with antiangiogenic cancer therapy may halt the
progression of leukemia, according to scientists at Sunnybrook
and Women's College Health Sciences Centre. The research,
published today in Blood, is the first to show the combination
of two factors secreted from the environment of the spleen is
important in the promotion of leukemia. Dr. Yaacov Ben-David, a
Senior Scientist in Molecular and Cellular Biology at the
Sunnybrook & Women's Research Institute who is the lead
investigator in the study and colleagues, including Dr. Yuval
Shaked, a post-doctoral fellow, discovered that the spleen of
diseased mice provides a supportive environment for cancer
cells. The spleen secretes various factors, among them MCP and
VEGF, which relate to the immune system and promote formation of
new blood vessels. Secretions of these factors cause leukemic
cells in the spleen to multiply. In this study, Dr. Ben-David's
team showed that these factors might contrib