Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Research Highlight
  • Published:

Metastasis

Easing the pain

Nature Reviews Cancer volume 5, page 918 (2005)Cite this article

The authors injected canine prostate tumour cells into the intramedullary space of the femur of nude mice. Tumour-induced pain-related behaviours, such as guarding the limb and flinching, were observed at 9 days post-injection and increased until 19 days post-injection, when the mice were euthanized. Similar to humans, significant bone formation and destruction was seen and the newly formed bone in the tumour-bearing compartment had the characteristic scalloped appearance seen in patients with prostate cancer.

Intraperitineal injection of anti-NGF antibodies at day 7, 12 and 17 post-sham or prostate cancer cell injection, significantly reduced time spent guarding the limb and spontaneous flinching. The pain attenuation effect was greater than when morphine sulphate — a common treatment for bone pain — was given to the mice. The authors suggest that the antibody might be particularly effective because nearly all nerve fibres that innervate bone express the neurotrophin receptors TRKA (also known as NTRK1 and p75, and these are the receptors through which NGF sensitizes and/or activates peripheral receptors of pain.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on SpringerLink
  • Instant access to the full article PDF.

USD 39.95

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

ORIGINAL RESEARCH PAPER

  1. Halvorson, K. G. et al. A blocking antibody to nerve growth factor attenuates skeletal pain induced by prostate tumor cells growing in bone. Cancer Res. 65, 9426–9435 (2005)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Authors
  1. Ezzie Hutchinson
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Hutchinson, E. Easing the pain. Nat Rev Cancer 5, 918 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrc1764

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrc1764

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing