Cure for a common turtle cancer takes a lesson from human cancers

Cure for a common turtle cancer takes a lesson from human cancers

6 years ago
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http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/06/cure-common-turtle-cancer-takes-lesson-human-cancers

A one-two punch can knock out a common cancer in sea turtles. Just as some human cancers are best treated first by surgical removal of the tumor and then by chemotherapy, surgery and treatment with the anticancer drug fluorouracil reduced the reoccurrence of the sometimes deadly turtle cancer fibropapilloma from 60% to 18%, researchers report today in Communications Biology.

The cancer often leads to rapidly growing tumors on the mouth, in the eyes, and on the flippers that interfer with eating, swimming, and other functions—at times so much that the animals ultimately die. Biologists in Florida first noticed the disease in green sea turtles (Chelonia mydas, pictured) more than a century ago and by the 1990s had learned it was spread by a herpeslike virus. Today, this cancer is found all over the world, particularly in warmer places.

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