Plenary Session 4: Progression and Metastasis
Wednesday, April 21, 2010, 8:00 AM-10:30 AM
Presentation Title: Experimental studies of tumor metastasis and clinical implications
Ann F. Chambers, Ph.D., is a distinguished oncology scientist at the London Regional Cancer Program, Canada Research Chair in Oncology at the University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada, and director of the Pamela Greenaway Kohlmeier Translational Breast Cancer Research Unit.
Recent Research
Chambers and colleagues report on a magnetic resonance imaging technique that quantifies the majority of the metastatic cell population, including both growing metastases and solitary cells. (See "Detailed Research Summary" below.) They published an article related to this topic in Cancer Research (article freely available):
Detailed Research Summary
The population of metastatic cells within a secondary organ is heterogeneous and unlikely to respond uniformly to treatment. Therefore, treatment failure may be a result of an inability to target the entire population of metastatic cells, particularly solitary dormant cells. Development of treatments to target these dormant cells is complicated by the difficulties associated with detecting and quantifying single cells in vivo due to the large field of view and high spatial resolution necessary to detect both single cells and metastases in the same organ.
In this Cancer Research article, Chambers and colleagues describe a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technique capable of quantitating both single cells and populations of metastatic cells in a secondary organ. Mice were injected with iron oxide-labeled melanoma cells, and then treated with doxorubicin or vehicle control. Livers taken from these animals were then imaged using a customized 3T clinical MRI scanner. Both metastases (>200 μm) and iron oxide-labeled single cells were quantitated. The authors found that doxorubicin treatment inhibited the growth of metastases, but did not decrease the number of solitary metastatic cells in the same liver. These results show that this MRI-based technique can quantitate both single cells and populations of metastatic cells, as well as identify their differential responses to therapy.