A group of American scientists, led by Professor Neil Theise of New York University, discovered a new organ in the human body which is cancer spreading organ. Its detection had been hampered with the limitations of the standard technique.
However, Theise and his colleagues used a different approach: they introduced a fluorescent dye into the living tissues of the patient, illuminated them with a laser, and injected an endoscope into the body.
Researchers from the United States announced the presence of an earlier unknown organ in the human body. It is a network of microscopic canals in connective tissue and possibly associated with the development of oncology. This discovery can explain how cancer tumors grow and will help in creating a cure for one of the most terrible diseases of our time.
The new organ is a branched system of interconnected cavities in the connective tissue that penetrates through the whole body. The walls of these cavities are composed of cells resembling fibroblasts and containing fibers of strong collagen and elastin proteins. The cavities themselves are filled with liquid and open into the lymph nodes.
The discovery was made during the endoscopy of the gastrointestinal tract of one of the patients. For this purpose, 13 samples of these cells were taken from patients in a hospital in New York.
Studying the gastric duct, the researchers noticed the heterogeneity of the tissues, which were imbued with a network of small channels that looked like ordinary capillaries. A careful examination showed that, unlike microscopic vessels, the new channel network has a darker structure. The researchers also found similar channels in the nasal cavity.
As scientists have found out, the detected structure presents in other human organs, performing a damping, that is, protective function. It seems that these cavities also participate in the formation of edema and fibrosis; In addition, they spread metastases of cancerous tumors and cells that feed them.
They promote the movement of tumor cells through the lymphatic system. Given these data, doctors expect to create a new method for diagnosing cancer.
The new organ is called “interstitium”, it can be even more voluminous than our skin and is a network of fluid-filled cavities. It was previously thought that these cavities are just a layer of collagen in the connective tissues. In fact, it turned out that this layer is the “river bed”, which contains about 20% of the entire fluid of the human body. The skin area of an adult reaches 16% of the body weight. The interstitium is equivalent to 10 liters of fluid.
As experts explained, the channels could not have been found earlier, since the collagen fibers that formed them were destroyed due to the outflow of liquid during standard methods of investigation.
The cavities with the liquid could not be detected with standard microscopic studies, since during these studies the tissue samples are cut into thin plates, and various chemicals and dyes are used. The fluid leaves the samples, and the interstitium cavity could not be seen because of the absence of liquid in them.
The new organ is more likely responsible for moving lymph along the body. It is possible that it is the interstitial channels that are involved in the metastasis of cancer since cancer cells are transferred from one organ to another with lymph. While all these are just assumptions, it will take a long time and many additional studies to confirm or disapprove them.
Scientists hope that the discovery can change the notion of the structure of our bodies and give an answer to one of the main issues of modern medicine – how to combat cancer effectively.
