Nerves do grow in tumours: study Posted Monday, February 18, 2002 by ctustis
BERLIN, Feb 14 (Reuters Health) - Although doctors have generally thought
that tumors lack nerves, German researchers are building a body of
evidence showing that nerves are in fact present in tumours, which could
lead to a new understanding of cancer.

Dr. Peter Seifert of the University Eye Clinic in Bonn, Germany, first
found nerve fibres in tumours of the eye while using a very high-powered
microscope to examine the tumours.

"People were not looking for nerves in tumours," he said, adding that
most researchers looking at tumors used microscopes that do not show
nerve fibres. "This was the first time nerve fibres were found in
tumours," he said. "But because the eye is such a complicated organ I
decided to look for some kind of proof that the nerve fibres were solely
concerned with the tumour, not the organ."

The proof he needed was eventually found in bladder tumours from five
different patients.

"The tumours there grow into the bladder like a little tree," he said.
"There could be no doubt that the nerve fibres I found there were only
concerned with the tumours."

He has now found more evidence of innervation, in another kind of eye
tumour called choroidal melanoma. This latest research has been accepted
for publication in an American journal for May 2002.

Initial inspection suggested that the nerves in the tumours are involved
in the body's autonomous nervous system--which regulates breathing, heart
rate and many other fundamental systems that are controlled
unconsciously--Seifert said.

"It is possible that this is connected to psychological factors, such as
stress, being influential on tumours," Seifert said. "I personally would
not rule out that this could be the reason. It could also be part of an
explanation of spontaneous healing of tumours, and that some appear and
then go away again."

The next step is to prove that the nerve fibres are carrying messages
from the nervous system, he said.

"It now needs to be researched why the nerve fibres are there--what are
they there to communicate? If you look at a tumour as a system that you
have to fight, you can only do that when you understand it properly,"
Seifert said. "I hope this brings us one small step further in that
direction."

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