Tiny sacs released from tumor cells and circulating in the blood carry genetic information about the tumor, offering a new way to track and treat the cancer, US researchers said on Sunday. “They contain a little piece of the tumor cell in the blood stream.
If you just look at these packets, you basically know what kind of mutations are in the tumor cell,” said Xandra Breakefield of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, whose study appears in the Journal Nature Cell Biology.
These membrane covered packets, called exosomes, represent a new way of getting information about a cancer, offering a means of choosing the best therapy, seeing how a patient responds to treatment, and possibly offering a way to deliver therapies back to the tumor, Breakefield said.
Source: TOI
