Researchers Discover Radiation Treatment Leads To Increased Malignancy Of Cancer

A study published in the journal Cancerby researchers from the department of Radiation Oncology at the UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center reports that radiation drives breast cancer cells into greater malignancy(0)(1). Malignancy is a term used to describe the tendency of tumors and their potential to become progressively worse, ultimately resulting in death. They discovered that induced breast cancer cells (iBCSCs) were more likely to form tumors than the cells that haven’t been exposed to radiation. What’s even more astonishing is that that the radiated breast cancer cells increased their likelihood of malignancy by 30 times. Radiation treatment actually regresses the total population of cancer cells, generating the false appearance that the treatment is working, but actually increases the ratio of highly malignant to benign cells within that tumor. This can eventually result in the treatment-induced death of the patient.

In some cases, cancer stem cells are generated by the therapy, but scientists do not yet understand all the mechanisms that cause this to occur. If they can determine the pathway and remove the reprogramming of cancer cells, they ultimately may be able to reduce the amount of radiation given to patients along with its accompanying side effects(2) – Dr. Pajonk

Another study that was published in the  Journal Stem Cells found that ionizing radiation reprogrammed less malignant breast cancer cells into iBCSCs(3). This explains why radiation treatment enhances the tumor populations with higher levels of treatment resistant cells.

Breast cancers are thought to be organized hierarchically with a small number of breast cancer stem cells (BCSCs) able to regrow a tumor while their progeny (offspring) lack this ability. Recently, several groups reported enrichment for BCSCs when breast cancers were subjected to classic anticancer treatment. However, the underlying mechanisms leading to this enrichment are incompletely understood. Using non-BCSCs sorted from patient samples, we found that ionizing radiation reprogrammed differentiated breast cancer cells into induced BCSCs (iBCSCs). iBCSCs showed increased mammosphere formation, increased tumorigenicity, and expressed the same stemness-related genes as BCSCs from nonirradiated samples(3).

There is a lot of research to suggest that conventional cancer treatment with chemotherapy and radiation is a large contributing factor of cancer patient mortality. The main reason for this is because cancer stem cells are resistant to conventional treatment, which play a critical role in the development of tumors(4). Studies show that cancer stem cells are resistant to conventional treatment(5).

Cancer stem cells are tumorigenic (tumor-forming) and should be the primary target of cancer treatment because they are capable of both initiating and sustaining cancer.  They are also increasingly recognized to be the cause of relapse and metastasis following conventional treatment   The most deadly cells within a tumor or blood cancer are cancer stem cells. They have the ability to give rise to all the cell types found within that cancer. Research shows that radiotherapy increases cancer stem cells(6), which eventually results in cancer reoccurrence!

We must pay attention to more publicly funded research. All research used in the medical industry is funded by corporations that benefit financially from treatment. This creates the possibility of bias, which clearly shows with so many studies coming out that suggest radiation and chemotherapy treatment are not the best options.

We recently posted a story of a man who cured his stage three colon cancer by transitioning to a complete vegan diet. You can read more about that here. More people diagnosed with cancer are opting out of traditional treatments like chemotherapy and radiation. As I’ve said before, cancer is a multi-trillion dollar industry which would make it hard for one to market studies that go against traditional treatments like chemotherapy. There was a study published in August 2003 that revealed of adult cancer in the USA and Australia, the use of chemotherapy only provided a cure 2.1 % of the time. You can read more about that and view the study here.

Hopefully this opens up some minds, and encourages more to look into the subject before dismissing alternative methods and supporting conventional ones. It’s best to consider all things, and at least have a look to see what type of discoveries and information might be beneficial to us.