The lung cancer drug that could kill off breast tumours
A DRUG used to treat lung cancer could also work for more than 7,000 women diagnosed with breast cancer each year.
The discovery provides hope for women with lobular breast cancer, which BBC presenter Victoria Derbyshire was diagnosed with in 2015.
The cancer, which originates deep in the breasts’ milk-producing lobes, caused Miss Derbyshire to have a rightside mastectomy and reconstruction. BBC wildlife presenter Michaela Strachan also had a double mastectomy after being diagnosed with it a year earlier.
Scientists found the lung cancer drug crizotinib could help women with this
‘Could offer a new lifeline’
type of cancer who carry a specific mutation. This mutation affects up to 90 per cent of women with lobular breast cancers, as well as some with ‘triplenegative’ breast cancer, which spreads faster than other types and is notoriously hard to treat.
In laboratory tests on mice and human cells, the drug caused breast tumour cells to die. The Institute of Cancer Research in London is now launching a £750,000 clinical trial in patients with advanced lobular breast cancer.
Miss Strachan, who was diagnosed with the cancer at 48 and underwent hormone therapy to treat it, said: ‘I’m one of the lucky ones, but for some women with lobular breast cancer it’s a very different story as hormone therapy may not work, and after that they have few options. This research could offer a new lifeline.’
The lung cancer drug was found to be effective for breast cancers with a mutation creating faulty versions of a protein called E-cadherin. This defect occurs in around one in eight cases of breast cancer, particularly lobular cancers, and is carried by an estimated 7,150 women diagnosed each year.
Lead author Chris Lord, professor of cancer genomics at The Institute of Cancer Research, said: ‘These are hugely promising laboratory findings and we’re very keen to learn whether this class of drug really works as a treatment for women with breast cancer.’
There are currently no treatments to target defects in E-cadherin, which cause cancer cells to grow and divide abnormally. Scientists wanted to use an approach called ‘synthetic lethality’ which exploits two key genes that cancer cells need to survive.
One of those genes, which affects E-cadherin, does not function in most women with lobular breast cancer. As a result, using a drug to block the second gene would cause the cancer cell to die.
After testing 80 treatments, the team discovered the existing lung cancer drug had the desired effect.
It offers a new lifeline for women with lobular breast cancers, who can be resistant to hormone therapy and also respond less well to chemotherapy.
Responding to the study, published in the journal Cancer Discovery, Baroness Delyth Morgan, of Breast Cancer Now said: ‘Hormone therapies can be incredibly difficult for women to take longterm, and with resistance unfortunately common among these patients, we hope this exciting class of drugs could offer a muchneeded new option for many.’
An NHS hospital in Cambridge is offering a procedure that uses tiny balloons to inflate blood vessels in patients with a rare form of lung disease. The treatment, for chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension, means patients will no longer have to rely on long-term drug therapy.