Question

A drug is developed that blocks angiogenesis which is the development of blood vessels. It will have the following effect(s) on cancer cells:

Answer 1

wat is angiogenesis??

Answer 2

Angiogeneisis is blood vessel formation.

The textbook answer (and probably the "right" one with respect to the problem) is that tumor cells require nutrients from blood to grow. Drugs which block blood vessel formation inside tumors should deprive tumors of these nutrients, thus making it harder for them to grow.

In this case, the textbooks have not caught up with science. Patients treated with blood vessel blocking drugs tend to have worse prognoses than patients who were not treated with these drugs. Why not?

While depriving the tumors of nutrients does slow their growth, it also makes them more likely to metastasize. Almost as though they sense that there are not enough nutrients available in their current tissue, so the put more effort into seeding themselves elsewhere in the body. Also, it may or may not change their metabolic profiles and hence their sensitivity to other drugs aimed at stopping them (read up on the Pentose Phosphate Pathway - active in normal cells and overactive in tumor cells).

So the overall effect it will have tumor cells is: 1. They will go through cell division slower in their initial tissue and the tumor growth rate will slow. 2. They will become more aggressive cancers which spread faster through the body.