Scientists find cancer gets deadlier by 'shapeshifting'

Scientists have discovered that bowel cancer cells can transform into skin or muscle cells, allowing them to spread more aggressively. This breakthrough offers hope for treating the increasing rates of the disease, especially among young people.

- SARAH WARD

A study conducted by the Cancer Research UK Scotland Centre and the University of Edinburgh revealed that a critical step in aggressive bowel cancer involves cells losing their original identity, a process known as cellular plasticity. Researchers found that the disease spreads when colonic cells begin to resemble squamous cells, which form skin, or muscle cells.

Bowel cancer is the second most common cause of cancer deaths in the UK. It claims the lives of 16,800 people in Britain, including 1,700 in Scotland, every year and is increasingly being diagnosed in younger people internationally.

A recent study by the American Cancer Society published in The Lancet Oncolo showed early-onset bowel cancer rates in adults aged 25-49 are rising in 27 of 50 countries studied, and increasing faster in young women in Scotland and England than in young men.

Scotland is disproportionately affected with around 4,000 people diagnosed each year overall, according to Cancer Research UK. The latest study found bowel cancer cells can adapt to resemble skin cells, which can tolerate much harsher day-to-day conditions due to their role and position protecting the outside of the body, and also muscle cells, both of which are more “robust”.