New Concerns About Radiation And Breast Cancer

It is well established that exposure to ionizing radiation can result in mutations or other genetic damage that cause cells to turn cancerous. Now a new study led by researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has revealed another way in which radiation can promote cancer development. Working with cultures of human breast cells, the researchers discovered that radiation exposure can alter the environment surrounding the cells so that future cells are more likely to become cancerous.

"Our work shows that radiation can change the microenvironment of breast cells, and this in turn can allow the growth of abnormal cells with a long-lived phenotype that has a much greater potential to be cancerous," says Paul Yaswen, a cell biologist and breast cancer research specialist with Berkeley Lab's Life Sciences Division.

source: Medical News Today