European scientists recently discovered a novel therapy to treat a subgroup of patients with hereditary breast/ovarian cancer. Both the EU and the US have approved an accelerated procedure to market this promising new treatment with few side effects. On the web portal HorizonHealth.eu, the researchers reveal that they have now also developed a special technique to keep tumour tissue alive outside the human body. They can use this to identify patients that are likely to respond to the new therapy. The first results suggest that more than a thousand patients in the Netherlands alone may benefit from the new treatment every year.
DNA damage repair
Most patients with hereditary breast cancer have so-called BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutations. These strongly increase their risk of breast cancer and ovarian cancer. However, the mutations are also the weakness of the tumour cells. The novel treatment cleverly exploits this weakness to kill cancer cells and leave healthy cells unharmed.
"We think DNA is the key to providing better anti-cancer therapies", says Roland Kanaar, one of the scientific coordinators of the collaborative project DDResponse. This consortium, which was funded by the European Commission, combines scientific, medical and pharmaceutical expertise to deliver fundamental knowledge about DNA damage repair and its clinical application.
Few side effects
Years of international scientific research have resulted in insight into the function of BRCA proteins in a healthy human body. BRCA proteins are involved in repairing breaks in the DNA double helix. Such breaks may cause cell death when left unrepaired. Healthy cells have two methods of repairing these breaks. "Tumours with a BRCA defect have lost one of these methods, leaving them with only one", explains research coordinator Dik van Gent. "We have unravelled how certain molecules inhibit the remaining repair process, causing the tumour cells to die. Healthy cells survive the treatment because they still have one active DNA repair mechanism left. As a result, the therapy has few side effects."
Personalised medicine
After unravelling the molecular mechanism of the treatment, researchers at Erasmus MC (Rotterdam, the Netherlands) and LUMC (Leiden, the Netherlands) developed a technique to identify patients that may benefit from the treatment. The new technique enables scientists to keep a biopsy from the tumour alive outside the patient's body. As a result, it is possible to test the treatment on the patient's own tissue. This effectivity test is an important step towards personalised medicine, tailoring treatments to the individual patient.
Future
The next challenge is to make the effectivity test available to all breast and ovarian cancer patients. Scientific coordinator Jan Hoeijmakers: "Scientists in the Dutch cities of Rotterdam, Leiden, Amsterdam and Groningen have now received funding from Alpe d'Huzes, allowing us to search for possibilities to extend the application of the test. This breakthrough is a major reward for the many researchers who contributed to finding the Achilles' heel of this type of cancer over the past few years. In the long term, we expect this treatment to also benefit patients with other types of cancer involving a similar DNA repair defect."
Explore further: World-first cancer drugs could work in larger group of patients
Provided by HorizonHealth
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European scientists recently discovered a novel therapy to treat a subgroup of patients with hereditary breast/ovarian cancer. Both the EU and the US have approved an accelerated procedure to market this promising new treatment with few side effects. On the web portal HorizonHealth.eu, the researchers reveal that they have now also developed a special technique to keep tumour tissue alive outside the human body. They can use this to identify patients that are likely to respond to the new therapy. The first results suggest that more than a thousand patients in the Netherlands alone may benefit from the new treatment every year.
DNA damage repair
Most patients with hereditary breast cancer have so-called BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutations. These strongly increase their risk of breast cancer and ovarian cancer. However, the mutations are also the weakness of the tumour cells. The novel treatment cleverly exploits this weakness to kill cancer cells and leave healthy cells unharmed.
"We think DNA is the key to providing better anti-cancer therapies", says Roland Kanaar, one of the scientific coordinators of the collaborative project DDResponse. This consortium, which was funded by the European Commission, combines scientific, medical and pharmaceutical expertise to deliver fundamental knowledge about DNA damage repair and its clinical application.
Few side effects
Years of international scientific research have resulted in insight into the function of BRCA proteins in a healthy human body. BRCA proteins are involved in repairing breaks in the DNA double helix. Such breaks may cause cell death when left unrepaired. Healthy cells have two methods of repairing these breaks. "Tumours with a BRCA defect have lost one of these methods, leaving them with only one", explains research coordinator Dik van Gent. "We have unravelled how certain molecules inhibit the remaining repair process, causing the tumour cells to die. Healthy cells survive the treatment because they still have one active DNA repair mechanism left. As a result, the therapy has few side effects."
Personalised medicine
After unravelling the molecular mechanism of the treatment, researchers at Erasmus MC (Rotterdam, the Netherlands) and LUMC (Leiden, the Netherlands) developed a technique to identify patients that may benefit from the treatment. The new technique enables scientists to keep a biopsy from the tumour alive outside the patient's body. As a result, it is possible to test the treatment on the patient's own tissue. This effectivity test is an important step towards personalised medicine, tailoring treatments to the individual patient.
Future
The next challenge is to make the effectivity test available to all breast and ovarian cancer patients. Scientific coordinator Jan Hoeijmakers: "Scientists in the Dutch cities of Rotterdam, Leiden, Amsterdam and Groningen have now received funding from Alpe d'Huzes, allowing us to search for possibilities to extend the application of the test. This breakthrough is a major reward for the many researchers who contributed to finding the Achilles' heel of this type of cancer over the past few years. In the long term, we expect this treatment to also benefit patients with other types of cancer involving a similar DNA repair defect."
Explore further: World-first cancer drugs could work in larger group of patients
Provided by HorizonHealth
Medical Xpress on facebook
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World-first cancer drugs could work in larger group of patients
23 hours ago
A pioneering class of drugs that target cancers with mutations in the BRCA breast cancer genes could also work against tumours with another type of genetic fault, a new study suggests.
Study identifies promising drug target in certain breast and ovarian cancers
Feb 16, 2015
The Food and Drug Administration's recent approval of the drug olaparib for ovarian cancer patients with inherited mutations in the genes BRCA1 or BRCA2 came as welcome news to the thousands of women now ...
New drug resistance mechanism has implications for breast, ovarian cancer treatment
Mar 05, 2015
Research to understand why hereditary cancers develop resistance to a powerful cancer drug has identified an important new pathway key to chemoresistance in BRCA2-mutant cancers. The research, published in ...
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Feb 16, 2015
Ovarian cancer patients throughout Europe and the United States could soon be treated with a new drug discovered through pioneering research at the University of Sheffield funded by Yorkshire Cancer Research.
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Nov 05, 2014
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49 minutes ago
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1 hour ago
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2 hours ago
A cancer drug could be made 50 times more effective by a chemical found in stinging nettles and ants, new research finds.
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18 hours ago
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User comments
Please sign in to add a comment. Registration is free, and takes less than a minute. Read more
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© Medical Xpress 2011-2014, Science X network
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