By David Liu, Ph.D.

Tuesday July 19, 2011 (foodconsumer.org) -- If you can stop blood vessels from growing, you may potentially inhibit cancer growth.  Antiangiogenic cancer therapy is one type of cancer treatments that is intended to prevent cancer growth by inhibiting its vascular growth.

However, researchers at University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center reported in the July 2011 issue of Heart Failure Clinics that antiangiogenic cancer therapies can result in cardiovascular toxicities, specifically, increasing risk of high blood pressure and heart failure.

Meredith L. Rees BA and Aarif Y. Khakoo MD, MBA, authors of the report, said antiangiogenic cancer treatments inhibit proangiogenic growth factors and their receptor tyrosine kinases, which are also important in the normal cardiovascular physiology even though they promote the cancer cell growth.

According to the authors, antiangiogenic cancer therapies are now commonly used to treat highly vascularized cancer including metastatic renal cell carcinoma or cancer, and some gastrointestinal cancers.