Boost in fight to beat worst breast cancer

PATIENTS with the form of breast cancer that is hardest to beat could be helped by a new drug developed by UK scientists.

Experts from Oxford University and the University of Nottingham found that the drug, called JQ1, was effective against tumours known as ‘triple negative’, which account for up to 20 per cent of breast cancers and particularly affect the under-40s.

In healthy breast tissue, oxygen circulates freely to cells via the bloodstream, but certain cancerous growths can release chemicals to stop it. Cancer cells adapt to the lack of oxygen, or hypoxia, and ‘request’ fresh oxygen from new blood vessels before taking nutrients off them and spreading, making the cancer far tougher to treat.

Hypoxia is most common in triple negative breast cancer, so called because it lacks receptors for the hormones oestrogen and progesterone or HER2 protein. It therefore does not respond to therapies which use these such as tamoxifen or Herceptin.

Tests showed that JQ1 can stop the cells adapting. Dr Alan McIntyre, study coauthor, said it ‘could be an important key to helping women with aggressive breast tumours’. The findings – tested on mice and on human cell cultures – were published in the journal Oncogene yesterday.

The JQ1 ‘family’ is already used to fight cancer but Nell Barrie, Cancer Research UK’s senior science communications manager, said triple negative breast cancer patients ‘urgently need better treatments’. Dr Richard Berks, senior research communications officer at Breast Cancer Now, which also backed the study, said it ‘could represent a real step forward’.