For many years doctors have had to use educated guess work as to whether or not their patients’ cancer will respond to particular treatments. These treatments are mostly invasive and extremely unpleasant for the patient. All of this guess work may soon be in the past due to a discovery made by Andy Minn and his team at the University of Chicago. They found that a vast array of cancers shared the same gene abnormalities in 49 genes, known as the IFN(interferon) – related DNA damage resistance signature(IRDS)
This signature was found to be associated with a resistance to radiotherapy among many cancer cell lines. They also found that in breast cancer patients in particular they were able to successfully predict whether or not the cancer would respond to radiotherapy or drug treatments which cause interference in the DNA of dividing cancer cells. This is a massive breakthrough in the cancer world and could lead to less invasive and a more direct treatment to particular cancers. “This moves us one step closer to personalising cancer treatment, and points towards ways to improve the effectiveness of chemotherapy and radiotherapy.” Says a spokeswoman for Cancer Reasearch UK (CRUK)
In a separate but coincidental study done by Cambridge institute’s Jason Caroll has uncovered that a popular breast cancer treatment drug tamoxifen has diminished efficacy when used on some breast cancers. It is a widely known fact that most breast cancers are fuelled by the hormone oestrogen. Tamoxifen blocks those oestrogen receptors. Jason Caroll has found that some breast cancers can avoid this process by expressing a different receptor named Her2. This means the tamoxifen is no longer targeting those receptors. This process could be short circuited by the development of drugs which aim to prevent Her2 forming, this would allow continued use of tamoxifen.
Cancer treatment is going to be a long run challenge as cancer cells change and respond to different therapies, but these recent discoveries may lead to treatments that can be much more targeted and successful in beating the cancer battle.
References:
Geddes, L. 2008, ' One step closer to a personal cancer treatment', New Scientist, 15 November, Pg 12
Gonzalez-Angulo AM, Morales-Vasquez F, Hortobagyi GN. ‘systemic therapy in patients with breast cancer’ 2007; 608:1-22
Images:
Clenbuterol online Pharmacy 2008
http://www.clenbuterol-dosage.com/index.php?cPath=32
Caeser, K Nature Genetics 2009
http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/v38/n8/fig_tab/ng0806-866_F1.html
