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New player in cancer’s spread
When people hear that they might have cancer, perhaps the only thing more frightening than the C word is the M word. Metastatic disease — in which the tumor has traveled beyond its primary place to other spots in the body — is responsible for nine out of every 10 cancer deaths.
Recently an unexpected player in this process has emerged: a common bacterium. Fusobacterium nucleatum, which normally lives harmlessly in the gums, appears to have a role in the spread of some cancers of the colon, esophagus, pancreas and — possibly — breast. Laboratory studies and evidence in patients indicate that the microbe can travel through the blood and infect tumor cells by attaching to a sugar molecule on their surface. There it provokes a range of signals and immune responses known to cause tumor cells to migrate. If further confirmed, the work with F. nucleatum could add to a growing understanding of how the microbiome influences cancer progression and may even point the way to fresh approaches to treatment.
(Claudia Wallis. Scientific American, outubro de 2020. Adaptado.)
In the excerpt from the last paragraph “and may even point the way to fresh approaches to treatment.”, the underlined word can be replaced, with no change in meaning, by
