High Stress Levels May Promote Ovarian Cancer

Researchers at the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center report that chronic stress triggers a chain of molecular events that protects breakaway ovarian cancer cells from destruction.

Under stress conditions the body products heightened levels of the fight-or-flight stress hormones epinephrine and norepinephrine and the researchers discovered that this permits more malignant cells to avoid being killed off.  They can safely leave the primary tumour and migrate as they move through the body in the blood and in ascites (fluid that accumulates in the abdomen of ovarian cancer patients) where they can re-attach to colonize new sites elsewhere.

Researchers also found that ovarian cancer patients face earlier mortality when a crucial protein activated by these stress hormones is present at high levels in their tumours and that depressed patients have higher levels of the protein.

Reducing  stress levels, and therefore adrenaline levels, is a crucial part of any cancer treatment programme, but particularly for ovarian cancer.  The researchers are now investigating whether similar effects from stress and adrenaline excess occur in other types of cancer as well.