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The taming of the shrew
It may come as some surprise that the hedgehog is a distant relative of the shrew, and even more of a surprise that hedgehogs native to North America are now extinct and have never been present in Australia. However, hedgehog and its signalling pathways are increased in Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF). In this issue of Thorax, Jia and colleagues describe how the chemokine CXCL14 is increased in mice in response to Hedgehog overexpression and is elevated in the plasma from patients with IPF ( see page 780 ). In an effort to tame this shrew a hedgehog inhibitor has been developed and has been shown to inhibit CXCL14 in patients treated with cancer. Therefore, it is hoped CXCL14 can be used as a biomarker to demonstrate whether vismodegib can tame both the shrew and IPF.
The merry widows of windsor
Falstaff arrived in Windsor and tried to deceive rich women of the age, not unlike the deceit rested on the lungs by early tumours. However, much like the jealous Mr Ford, the medical community needs to understand the plans of the deceitful lesion, and hence the need to define the optimal screening strategy. Will NELSON sail to the rescue? …
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