Cancer- causing parasites could heal wounds and ulcers according to James Cook University researchers at the Australian Institute of Tropical Health and Medicine.Recently, a report on the discovery of a parasitic worm that can kill tens of thousands of people annually can quickly heal wounds and ulcers, says Science Daily on Oct. 21, Wednesday.
Opistorchis Viverrini, the oriental liver fluke, infects millions of people through eating raw fish. This is experienced in Southeast Asia and is noted that it has killed at least 26,000 people every year. The parasite-induced bile duct cancer is caused, which is also known as cholangiocarcinoma.
Dr. Michael Smouth and Prof. Alex Loukas , the researchers who worked on this study have found that the one centimeter long worm can quickly heal the wounds and ulcers by a growth factor secreted by it. However, the acceleration of wound repair can increase risk of developing liver cancer over the years.
According to Nature World Report, the new discovery can be used to fasten chronic wounds such as diabetic ulcers and other wounds and create a vaccine against the cancer that the worm induced. The vaccine then can obviously benefit the patients directly at risk of cancer, but the growth factor could also be advantageous for the developed world as a possible healing agent for wounds.
As people live longer and get heavier, diabetes can be a big problem that associates non-healing wounds, and yet these can be healed by the parasitic worm.
Tech Times also reports that the cancer- causing parasites are little beasts that are highly sophisticated, which have almost 15,000 genes in its genome, making them a saving grace.
Dr. Smout says that the parasites could live in the human body for decades. Although they keep the host healthy, they chew away its cells. He adds that scientists are still trying to learn how the growth factor can have control on the healing process of wounds as well as the zenith in developing the vaccine in the future.
