Stream Media

What are cancer growth blockers? A cancer growth blocker is a targeted drug that blocks the growth factors that trigger cancer cells to divide and grow. Scientists are looking at different ways of doing this such as: lowering levels of the growth factor in the body blocking the growth factor receptor on the cancer cell blocking the signals inside the cell that start up when the growth factor triggers the receptor Most of these treatments work by blocking the signalling processes that cancer cells use to divide. Cancer cells are often very sensitive to growth factors. So if we can block them, we can stop some types of cancer from growing and dividing. Scientists are developing different inhibitors for the different types of growth factors. It isn't easy to group targeted therapies into different types because the groups often overlap. This can be confusing. For example, some cancer growth blockers stop the growth of blood vessels to the growing cancer. So they are also working as an