Breakthrough Raises Hope For Children With Kidney Cancer

Scottish scientists hope they are on the way to finding a cure for a rare type of kidney cancer after studying a gene linked to the disease. Wilms’ tumour affects about 70 children a year in the UK and thousands around the world.

A team from Edinburgh University has grown kidneys from mice in the lab to show how blocking a gene known as WT1 affects the development of the disease. They hope their findings will help lead to new treatments for Wilms’ tumour. But they also believe that a greater understanding of how tumours develop will help scientists create treatments for more common cancers.

Lead researcher Dr Jamie Davies said that WT1 was known to play a role in preventing Wilms’ tumour. Previous research has suggested that the disease starts to develop in the foetus. However, whether cancer develops is linked to when the gene stops working.

Using the mice kidneys, the scientists deactivated the gene from the start of development, which meant the kidneys did not develop at all. They then stopped it at different times during growth. From this they discovered a crucial time when loss of WT1 caused the cells to multiply in the same uncontrolled way that led to Wilms’ tumour.

Dr Davies said this discovery meant they could look at ways of preventing the tumour happening and develop treatments for the disease by understanding the changes during this period.

Wilms’ tumour usually develops within the first three years of life and can spread to the lungs and liver. Symptoms include a lump in the abdomen, loss of appetite, fever and high blood pressure. The disease can be treated with surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy, depending on how far the tumour has spread.

Dr Davies said they could eventually find a way of treating the disease in young children by targeting the key WT1 gene. “It may be possible to reactive this gene to stop the tumour developing further,” he said. “Or maybe we could develop a drug that will perform the function of the gene, even when the gene has stopped working.”

But Dr Davies said the main aim of the study was to find out more about changes that occur when cancer starts to develop. “This study was about improving our understanding of the period when cells stop being normal and start turning into cancer,” he said. “By understanding this stage, we hope the findings will apply to other cancers like breast, bowel and lung cancer. You often find that studies of rare diseases lead to greater knowledge about more common diseases.”

The research was funded with a £140,000 grant from the Association for International Cancer Research (AICR), based in St Andrews. Dr Mark Matfield, the charity’s scientific consultant, said with further work the research could lead to new methods to treat or even prevent the cancer developing at all.

“To develop specific, effective treatments for rare cancers, we need to understand how they are caused and the mechanisms that make the cells divide. Fundamental research like this is going to open up new avenues of research which may well lead on to new therapeutic developments,” he said.

Derek Napier, AICR chief executive, added: “It is important to fund work that pushes the boundaries. Dr Davies and the team in Edinburgh have produced significant research which could in future change the lives of thousands of young people in the UK and across the world.”