Reasons for Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor failure in liver cancer found by Austrian doctoral program

24 November 2014

Researchers from the Medical University of Vienna, Austria, have clarified why using therapeutic agents to inhibit the epidermal growth factor receptor in liver cancer failed, when it was expected in recent years that the therapy would be an important milestone in oncology treatments.

The research was carried out by an Austrian Science Fund FWF doctoral program and the results have been published in NATURE Cell Biology, proving that the tumor-promoting effect of EGFR originates not directly from its expression in tumor cells but from its presence in the surrounding cells of the immune system.

The Institute of Cancer Research focused its work on mouse models where the presence of EGFR was suppressed in various different cell types in the liver. This made it possible to grow liver tumors whose tumor cells completely lacked EGFR, and according to previous knowledge, this was expected to result in decreased tumor growth.

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