Hope for women with Jolie cancer gene
A DRUGS breakthrough could help women carrying the Angelina Jolie breast cancer gene avoid surgery, a study suggests.
Women with the BRCA gene mutation are at higher risk of developing breast and ovarian cancer, so many of them opt for preventative treatments such as a mastectomy.
But research has indicated that giving drugs usually administered in the late stages of breast cancer to healthy people carrying the BRCA genes could prevent them from developing the disease.
Academics at Cambridge University found that immune cells in the breast tissue of healthy women carrying faulty BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes showed signs of ‘exhaustion’.
This malfunction, usually found in late-stage tumours, suggests the immune cells cannot clear out damaged cells – which leads to cancer. Study author Professor Walid Khaled explained that immunotherapy drugs can kickstart this function in the late stages of the disease.
He said: ‘This discovery opens up potential for a preventative treatment other than surgery for carriers of BRCA gene mutations.
‘Drugs already exist that can overcome this block in immune cell function, but so far they’ve only been approved for late-stage disease,’ he added.
Immunotherapy helps the patient’s own immune system to recognise and fight cancer.
Professor Khaled added: ‘No one has really considered using them in a preventative way before.
But he warned: ‘However, these drugs do have serious side effects and we are working now to determine a safe dosage.’
According to the Irish Cancer Society, women with either a BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene mutation have a 50% to 85% risk of developing breast cancer at some point in their lives, and a 10% to 40% risk of developing ovarian cancer.
Some patients with the faulty genes are offered risk-reducing surgery, which removes tissue that could become cancerous, such as breasts or ovaries.
Actress Angelina Jolie revealed she had undergone a double mastectomy in 2013, after testing positive for BRCA1 gene mutations. Her late mother, Marcheline Bertrand, died in 2007, aged 56, nearly a decade after being diagnosed with breast and ovarian cancer.