Cancer Cells Killed by Chemotherapy May Cause Cancer to Spread

Chemotherapy is known to come with a long list of side effects -- from debilitating nausea and hair loss to extreme fatigue -- and in many cases, it does not cure or even stop cancer from progressing. But what if chemotherapy does something no one has realized before during all the decades it has been in use? What if chemo actually encourages cancer to spread throughout the body, the process known as metastasis?

Researchers with the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Comprehensive Cancer Center and UAB Department of Chemistry have just been awarded a $805,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Defense Breast Cancer Research Program to see if the answer to those questions is "yes". The study is investigating the very real possibility that dead cancer cells left over after chemotherapy spark cancer to spread to other parts of the body.'

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