Researchers have identified biomarkers that could predict which patients using Herceptin will become...
Researchers have identified biomarkers that could predict which patients using Herceptin will become resistant to the drug.
After examining why nearly half of those receiving the drug developed a resistance to its effects, scientists at the Netherlands Cancer Institute have revealed that changes in activity of an internal signalling pathway, known as the 'P13K pathway', could be used to predict Herceptin resistance.
The scientists looked into Herceptin, which is effective in combating between 20% to 25% of breast cancer cases and costs roughly £30,000 a year for each patient. It has been hailed as a wonder drug in fighting cancer but has been mired in controversy due to its limited availability on the NHS.
Professor Karol Sikora, former medical director at CancerPartners UK, said: "It's all about assessing the risk of recurrent cancer versus the aggressiveness, and therefore unpleasantness, of the chosen treatment. Understanding the molecular basis of drug resistance is the key to developing strategies to prevent it."
Meanwhile, a team from the University of Nottingham presented a report at the National Cancer Research Institute in Birmingham claiming that they had identified six different classes of breast cancer, distinguished by the different proteins in the malignant cells and having different features such as different survival rates and responses to treatment. Further work is expected to clarify the research, which at present has not classified every type of breast cancer.
Dr Kat Arney, senior science information officer at Cancer Research UK, said: "There's still more work to be done, as there are more breast cancers that don't fit into these six categories, but this is an important step along the road to more effective treatments."
The experiments, which utilised over 1,000 tissue samples, are expected to be expanded upon using a larger sample in the not too distant future.
