A recent study revealed that breast cancer most often spreads while patients sleep, which may change the way “discovery and treatment of the disease in the future”, according to “Science Alert“.
The new discovery changes the assumptions held in the past, regarding the spread of tumors at the same rate around the clock, according to the journal “”Nature“.
Most cancer treatments are not designed to target cancer cells at a specific time, said Nicola Aseto, a researcher at the Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich), who was involved in the study.
He added: “We know now more than ever what is happening at different times and the treatment must be better,” according to the website.Eric Alert“.
According to “Science Alert,” the team of researchers reached this conclusion by chance when they noticed an unexplained difference in the number of cancer cells circulating in the samples analyzed at different times of the day.
The research team decided to conduct further research on 30 women with breast cancer, including nine women with metastatic cancer who did not receive treatment.
Scientists collected blood samples at different hours, and their analysis showed that 78 percent of all circulating cancer cells were found in nocturnal samples, when the women were asleep.
The researchers also performed similar blood tests on mice that had been injected with four different types of breast cancer, according to Nature.
They found that, depending on the type of cancer, between 87 and 99 percent of circulating cancer cells were obtained from samples taken while the animal was sleeping.
The tumor cells circulating in the sleeping mice were more numerous than those in the awake mice, according to “Nature”.
“The immune system is strongly affected by the sleep-wake cycle, known as the circadian rhythm,” Stowe says. “It was previously thought that cancerous tumors did not follow this circadian rhythm.”
According to “World Health OrganizationBreast cancer is the most common cancer with more than 2.2 million cases in 2020.
About one out of every 12 women will develop breast cancer in their lifetime, and it is the number one cause of cancer death among women, and nearly 685,000 women died from it in 2020, according to the organization.
