Cancer gene hit

THERE is new hope for women with the deadly Angelina Jolie breast cancer gene with a trial testing whether an osteoporosis drug can prevent the cancer.

More than 15,000 Australian women have the BRACA1 gene that gives them a 70 per cent chance of developing breast cancer by the age of 80.

The only way to prevent the cancer is to have a double mastectomy, as Angelina Jolie did in 2015.

The trial run through the Breast Cancer Trials group and to start mid next year will recruit women nationwide who have the BRACA1 mutation and are aged 25 to 55 and breast and ovarian cancer free.

They will be given the osteoporosis drug denosumab or a placebo to see whether the drug delays or prevents them getting breast cancer over a five-year period.

Australian researchers at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research made the breakthrough discovery that the cells that go awry to cause cancer in BRACA1 mutation carriers are switched on by a receptor called RANK ligand.

They proved in research in a petri dish and in mice you could prevent tumours in human breast tissue by switching off the RANK ligand.

RANK ligand is also important in bone growth and the medication denosumab, used to stop bone loss in women with osteoporosis, acts by switching off this receptor.

Studies have shown women with hormone-positive breast cancer who were given the drug to prevent bone loss also experienced a cancer preventive effect.

Using this knowledge Professor Geoff Lindeman from the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research did a trial with Melbourne women at high risk of the cancer and proved denosumab did indeed shut down the growth of breast cells.

Now he has to prove the concept in a double blind placebo controlled trial that has just received $2.6 million funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council.