New Delhi, October 8 (IANS). Advances in cancer treatment have significantly increased the survival rate of breast cancer patients. But a new study out Tuesday shows that common treatments like chemotherapy, radiation and surgery can extend patients’ biological lifespan.
Research conducted by a team of health sciences at the University of California in America has revealed that the impact of breast cancer treatment on the body is greater than before.
Signs of cellular aging are significantly increased in breast cancer survivors, no matter what treatment they received, according to the study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. These signals include DNA damage, cell senescence and inflammation. According to the team, these signs have increased the risk of fatigue, memory loss, weakness and early heart disease.
The study said that understanding specific pathways is important for better target setting and management.
“We show for the first time that signals previously thought to be associated with chemotherapy are now also found in women undergoing radiation and surgery,” said Judith Carroll, lead author of the research and associate professor of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences at UCLA. Let’s go.
“While we expected to see increased gene expression associated with aging in women who received chemotherapy, we were surprised to see similar changes in women who received only radiation or surgery,” she said.
He told that we thought that the age of women taking chemotherapy would increase rapidly, but we were surprised to see that the age of women taking only radiation or surgery was also increasing rapidly.
The team monitored gene changes in blood cells using RNA sequencing. Along with this, attention was focused on the markers indicating aging.
The team said the researchers found that certain genes become activated when DNA damage occurs. Although the pattern of chemotherapy was slightly different, they also saw changes in women who did not receive chemotherapy.
–IANS
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