Lymphatics are altered by chemotherapy--new paper out!

After two years of peer review and many edits and lots of love, our publication showing that carboplatin chemotherapy can increase lymphangiogenesis and that this lymphangiogenesis can prime tissues for metastatic spread of breast cancer is published at Frontiers Oncology as part of their special collection on Women in Breast Cancer Research. Graduate student Ali Harris began this work in 2016, working with collaborators across the University of Virginia to show that this lymphatic expansion occurs in multiple in vivo, ex vivo, and in vitro models and in patients in healthy and cancerous tissue. Specifically we show that this increase in lymphatics occurs without the tumor present which differentiates this work from our prior publication on docetaxel which required the tumor presence to induce lymphangiogenesis. Negatively, we find that tissues pre-treated with platinums will cause increased metastasis of breast tumor cells but, this effect can be blocked through blockade of the lymphangiogenesis-promoting receptor VEGFR3. Check out the recent VT News story on this work and find the publication at Frontiers Oncology and on our publications page.