A RESEARCH team in Dublin has made important advances in the diagnosis of breast cancer and in monitoring patients during treatment. It warns doctors if the cancer will be difficult to treat and also gives a very early indication if the cancer starts to regrow.
Dr Leonie Young led the research at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI). The method involves looking for “biomarkers”, substances in either blood or in tumour cells that tell the doctors how a patient is likely to progress under treatment.
They have spent a decade searching for biomarkers in the 75 per cent of breast cancers that are encouraged to grow because of the presence of the hormone oestrogen. These cancers can be treated with drugs but the cancer will regrow in 25 to 30 per cent of cases, Dr Young said yesterday after the launch of the research findings by the college.
The two predictive markers, one found in tissue samples, the other in blood serum, give an early warning whether the patient is likely to respond poorly to standard therapies, Dr Young said. This means doctors have an early warning that they should use more aggressive treatments.
The serum marker is also valuable because it tells the clinician whether the tumour has spread to other tissues or regrown, Dr Young said. This means it is possible to track progress by the patient as she receives treatments.
There are tests that can give an indication of progress but they are complex and samples must be shipped abroad, she said. Her method is much less complex and can be used on site with results within a few hours.
“They are as accurate or more accurate as any of the more sophisticated ones,” she said.
Dr Young believes that the new tests could come into clinical use within two to three years. The college was currently seeking a commercial partner to licence the discovery and produce a test.
The research involved looking for biomarkers, proteins expressed by the tumours and found in either cells or in blood. Once a promising biomarker was found, the research team could go back and study samples from an existing breast cancer biobank.
“Once we identified potential proteins [biomarkers] we went back to our patient cohort,” she said. The college has access to a bank including 550 breast cancer tissue samples and about 100 blood samples, Dr Young said.
Tests were continuing to confirm the accuracy of the biomarkers and the researchers wanted to build up to more than 1,000 tests to validate their findings.
Breast cancer is the second most common cancer in Ireland after non-melanoma skin cancers. It accounts for 28 per cent of all cancers in women in Ireland and is responsible for about 644 deaths each year.
Details of her findings were published earlier this year in the journal, Cancer Research. Other collaborators included Dr Marie McIlroy, RCSI; Prof Arnold Hill, chairman of surgery at RCSI; Dr Damian McCartan, RCSI; Sarah Early, RCSI and Peadar Ó Gaora, UCD School of Medicine and Medical Science. Funding came from Science Foundation Ireland and Breast Cancer Ireland.