Angiogenesis is the process of growing new blood vessels, which is necessary for wound healing and maintaining tissue health. However, in some diseases like cancer, too many blood vessels can feed abnormal tissue and cause harm. Antiangiogenic cancer therapies have shown promise, and angiogenic drugs are being studied for heart disease treatment. Understanding angiogenesis could lead to cures for many diseases.
Angiogenesis refers to the body’s ability to grow and develop new blood vessels. This is a normal process, which helps us recover from illnesses, thrive as children, and keep the oxygen supply to the tissues at a desirable level. It is particularly useful when we have any type of wound, such as a cut or scrape, a puncture or a surgical wound. When the body is healthy, angiogenesis occurs, which helps restore skin health. Women also perform a regular cycle of angiogenesis each month during their reproductive years; new blood vessels are key to forming the uterine lining that is shed monthly during menstruation.
The body has growth factors and angiogenesis inhibitors, and the process could be likened to flipping a switch on and off. The power switch communicates that new blood vessels are needed and that the growth factor chemicals in the body are outpacing the inhibitors. When the inhibitory chemicals in the body outnumber the growth factors, the angiogenesis process is turned off.
In some diseases, angiogenesis may occur too often or not enough. For example, cancer can create too many blood vessels to develop, which feed the cancerous tissue and help it metastasize. At the same time, abnormal tissue is fed, healthy tissue may die. Often, diseased cells are coded to make more blood vessels, and major research in this area is trying to find ways to turn this process off. Other diseases in which too many blood vessels can actually lead to tissue death include those such as diabetes, macular degeneration and rheumatoid arthritis.
Other diseases work in reverse, inhibiting the development of new blood vessels. Most heart disease, for example, significantly reduces chemical compounds that would stimulate new blood vessels to grow and replace diseased ones. In cases of stroke, failure of angiogenesis to occur can result in significant tissue death in the brain, which can then affect function. Again, medical researchers need to find a way to flip the switch “on” to help people with failure to grow new blood vessels.
So far, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), has seven cancer therapy treatments considered antiangiogenic and some encouraging results have been obtained from the use of these to treat colorectal cancer, neck cancer, breast cancer and pancreatic cancer. Long-term studies on the effectiveness of these drugs will help reveal more about their benefits and possible problems. There are several angiogenic (intended to stimulate blood vessel growth) drugs that are being studied as potentially useful in the treatment of heart disease. The FDA has not yet approved them.
Some scientists liken our growing understanding of angiogenesis to the development of antibiotics and suggest that this area of study may provide cures for thousands of diseases, as many diseases accelerate or inhibit the growth of new blood vessels. They argue that the process is a common factor in most diseases and could lead us to much better ways to manage disease in the future.
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