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July 22, 2021 (MedicalXpress) -- Some antibiotics appear to be effective against a form of skin cancer known as melanoma.
Researchers at KU Leuven, Belgium, examined the effect of these antibiotics on patient-derived tumors in mice. Their findings were published in the Journal of Experimental Medicine.
These antibiotics exploit a vulnerability that arises in tumor cells when they try to survive cancer therapy.
"As the cancer evolves, some melanoma cells may escape the treatment and stop proliferating to "hide" from the immune system.
These are the cells that have the potential to form a new tumor mass at a later stage," explains cancer researcher and RNA biologist Eleonora Leucci (KU Leuven).
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