Greek American Dr Petros Constantinos Benias has identified a new “organ system” officially termed “interstitium”, which is believed to play a role in a number of common diseases, including cancer.
A scientist at the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research, Dr Benias made the discovery by chance while investigating a patient’s bile duct for signs of cancer.
Layers, until now believed to be dense, connective tissue, have since been revealed to be a series of fluid-filled compartments found beneath the skin, between muscles, running right through the digestive and urinary tracts, lungs, and surrounding arteries and veins.
The compartments join to form a network supported by a mesh of strong, flexible proteins, which all up is estimated to contain one-fifth of the body’s total volume of fluids.
A new report on the discovery was published earlier this week by Dr Benias and a team of collaborators in the journal Scientific Reports examining “the structure and distribution” of the tissue.
They found that it acts as a “shock absorber” that protects organ tissue, muscles and vessels from rupturing during the body’s daily function.
But with the fluid having the ability to move through the various channels of the body, there are also negatives; it appears to be used by cancer cells to spread to different parts of the body.
New York University pathologist and co-lead investigator with Dr Benias, Dr Neil Theise said the research could help scientists to better understand the spread of cancer in the body, and as a result open up new pathways for treatment.
“The discovery can bring dramatic advances to medicine, including the possibility that the direct sampling of interstitial fluid may become a powerful diagnostic tool,” he said.
In the study, the scientists called on their colleagues in the field to embrace their new findings: “We propose here a revision of the anatomical concepts,” the team wrote in the journal.
With a number of physiological processes fraught with unknowns, including inflammation that leads to chronic diseases and scarring of connective tissue, Dr Benias said the discovery is “extremely exciting”.
“This discovery will open up new research pathways,” he said.