The Unkindest Cut: How Wounds Can Trigger Tumor Growth

[HuckleB]

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2011/02/15/the-unkindest-cut-how-wounds-can-trigger-tumor-growth/

"Sometimes, even a tiny cut can have serious and unexpected consequences. New research reveals that even a minor flesh wound can cause previously dormant cancer cells to develop into tumors.

The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, focuses on basal cell carcinoma, a variety of skin cancer associated with hair follicle cells. Basal cell carcinoma is the most common type of skin cancer, and while it rarely metastasizes or kills it’s still considered malignant.

Biochemists Sunny Wong and Jeremy Reiter, from the University of California, San Francisco, wanted to see how tumors develop from cancerous mutations. To do that, they genetically modified mice so that their hair follicle stem cells expressed the human basal cell carcinoma gene. After giving some of the mice a small cut, and leaving others alone, they discovered that tumors only formed on the hurt mice.

When skin is cut, hair-follicle stem cells migrate to the injury. Wong says pre-cancerous cells can lie dormant in the body until a trigger, such as radiation or a build up of mutations, pushes them into forming a tumour. “In this case, wounding got cancerous cells out of their resting phase,” he says.

..."


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Bummer. But still interesting.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

1. Atypical basal cell carcinoma in my case...

[xchrom]

2. ...

:scared:

[HuckleB]

3. Exactly. -eom-

[MGB67deux]

4. As a redhead...

I posses the fair, thin skin particular to that genotype. While I do have melanin, I also have a gene (the only dominate one in my structure)that dictates "thou shat clump thy melanin into freckles". The result is basal and squamous cell carcinoma (thank goodness no melanoma). The cancers developed long ago while working on the flight deck of an aircraft carrier in the far Pacific and certainly was not helped by working as an archaeologist for thirty years. What I have learned is the importance of early detection and treatment. If necessary, get another opinion!

When two VA doctors (who did not really give a shit) told me not to worry about the lump on my neck I foolishly took them at their word. Years later one fourth of my neck was removed to eradicate the tumor. Now my shirts fit funny. This is not an indictment of VA doctors.... two bad out of a hundred or so still means that 98 percent were good at their profession.

[Warpy]

5. I wonder if a similar mechanism might be at work

in keloid formation.

[flamingdem]

6. This is why backscatter X-RAYS used in airport security are BAD nt

[trotsky]

7. So is flying.

We're subjected to alarming levels of radiation just being so far up in the earth's atmosphere, not receiving its full protection.

[flamingdem]

8. not the kind that tear up DNA, google columbia university and backscatter for research nt

[trotsky]

9. Yes, the kind that tears up DNA.

http://news.discovery.com/human/travel-body-scanners-radiation.html

Cosmic radiation comes from our sun and other stars in the form of particles, such as protons, and electromagnetic waves, such as X-rays. These energetic rays stream through our bodies all the time, though Earth's atmosphere deflects most of them before they reach us.

The higher you go in altitude, from say New York to Denver, the less atmosphere there is to protect you, and the more radiation hits you. In an airplane, according to Barish's new paper, exposure levels are several hundred times higher than they are on the ground.

Health concerns arise because cosmic radiation is a form of ionizing radiation, which means it can knock electrons off of atoms in our bodies. Enough exposure leads to the tissue harm and genetic damage that cause cancers and other problems.

I'm not saying that body scanners are 100% perfectly safe, only that you aren't accurately taking everything into consideration here.

[flamingdem]

10. Did you read the research?

Everyone knows the cliche that you refer to in terms of cosmic radiation. What people do no realize is how shoddy the tests are for the rapiscan machines and how they concentrate xray 20 times more than was realized on sensitive areas like eyes, breast, organs.

It's okay though it won't be for many years until we see the rise in those kinds of cancers..

[trotsky]

11. Can you dispute what I said? It's not a cliche.

Please note ONCE AGAIN that I am not saying anything about the safety of the scanning equipment. But the fact of the matter is, we are exposed to considerable ionizing radiation while flying in a commercial aircraft. This is readily known and demonstrated.