Botox could be used in stomach cancer treatment

Botulinum toxin could be an effective treatment for stomach cancer, according to scientists from New York and Norway. A study, published in the journal Science Translational Medicine, found that using Botox on nerves in the stomach had very positive effects on stomach cancers, which has the second highest mortality rate.

The teams at Columbia University Medical Centre in New York and the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim found that disrupting the nerve that runs from the brain to the digestive system helped to slow the growth of tumours or make them more responsive to chemotherapy.

Dr Timothy Wang, professor of medicine at Columbia who headed up the research team, said, “We found that blocking the new signals makes the cancer cells more vulnerable – it removes one of the key factors that regulate their growth.”