Breast cancer breakthrough may help beat deadliest form
British scientists discover ‘self-destruct’ treatment
SCIENTISTS have isolated a molecule that could help them beat the deadliest form of breast cancer.
The ‘triple-negative’ form of the disease is so aggressive it can survive chemotherapy.
Normally, chemo triggers a signal in cells telling them to selfdestruct. But the cancer cells use the molecule – PIM1 – to resist these ‘kill’ messages.
By blocking PIM1, researchers believe the treatment will work properly. This would be a leap forward for the 75,500 British women diagnosed with triple-negative breast cancer every year.
They cannot be treated with Herceptin or tamoxifen, leaving patients typically facing gruelling surgery or rounds of radiation and chemotherapy.
Breast Cancer Now funded the research at its centres at King’s College London and London’s Institute of Cancer Research.
The charity’s chief executive, Baroness Morgan, said: ‘This is a hugely exciting advance for an important group of patients in desperate need of more treatment options.
Triple-negative breast cancer is often aggressive and more common in younger women, and chemotherapy drugs remain the only option for these women.
‘While these work very well for some, if patients’ cancers become resistant there are few other options. A new targeted treatment for triple negative patients would be a major breakthrough.’
A drug that can block PIM1 is already being tested in clinical trials for blood cancers such as leukaemia. Early results suggest it is tolerated by patients.
The cancer researchers looked at data from three studies taking in 2,255 patients, of whom 319 had triple-negative breast cancer.
Tumour growth was slowed in mice given a drug to block the molecule. When chemotherapy drugs were used as well, they were better at sending death signals to the cancer cells and killing them off.
Used in human tumour samples implanted in mice, the chemotherapy was more effective than if it had been used alone. Crucially, the treatment appears to cause few problems for the body, as PIM1 has little impact on how normal cells function. Research leader Professor Andrew Tutt said: ‘It is early days but as PIM1-inhibitor drugs have already been discovered they may give us a new way to hit these cancer genes.
‘The hope would be that these drugs could strip triple-negative breast cancers of their defences so that they can be pushed over the cliff by other breast cancer treatments.’
The Breast Cancer Now study was published in the journal Nature Medicine.