Researchers at Okayama University in Japan have recently published a study in Cells in which they reduced the size of oral cancer tumors by damaging the blood vessels surrounding the tumor cells.

Scientists have long been investigating ways to prevent this blood flow to cancer cells. CXCR4 is a protein known to be closely involved with tumor growth. However, its exact role in tumor progression is unclear.

A research team led by Assistant Professor KAWAI Hotaka and YOSHIDA Saori (graduate student, D.D.S.), Assistant Professor EGUCHI Takanori at Okayama University has now shown that CXCR4 is the main culprit maintaining the arrangement of tumor blood vessels.

This study is the first to show the role of CXCR4 in promoting tumor growth by supplying cancer cells with a healthy, organized network of blood vessels. Strategies that can disrupt this network can be explored further as anti-cancer therapies.