Dramatic News in Breast Cancer Research
The latest scientific research has confirmed that breast cancer can be categorized into four specific types, depending on its genetic root. Perhaps even more significantly, the study revealed distinctive genetic changes that feed not only breast cancer but many other kinds of cancer.
“We’ve known for awhile that there are several breast cancers, and we’ve talked about four subtypes,” says Sheldon Marc Feldman, MD, Chief, Division of Breast Surgery, NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center. “But this study teaches us it’s more complicated than we thought. It shows that even within subtypes, there can be a lot of genetic variation. It explains why some patients with the same subtype of cancer respond to one kind of treatment and others don’t.”
A September 23 New York Times article, Study Divides Breast Cancer Into Four Distinct Types, reported “The study is the first comprehensive genetic analysis of breast cancer, which kills more than 35,000 women a year in the United States. The new paper, and several smaller recent studies, are electrifying the field. The investigators identified at least 40 genetic alterations that might be attacked by drugs. Many of them are already being developed for other types of cancer that have the same mutations.”
Dr. Feldman explained this means that one kind of breast cancer is actually more similar to a certain kind of ovarian or even lung cancer than it is to another breast cancer. He predicts the day will come when “we won’t talk about breast cancer or pancreatic cancer or lung cancer but rather cancer with these particular genetic characteristics. Treatments won’t be specific to organs. Instead we’ll treat according to genomic differences.”
One part of the national Cancer Genome Atlas, the study analyzed breast tumors in 825 patients with non-metastatic cancer. The goal was to pinpoint genetic mutations that can be destroyed before the cancer spreads.
“I strongly agree with the researchers who believe this study illuminates where we’re going in terms of treatment: that we might cure breast cancer,” says Dr. Feldman. “Now we have the possibility of finding additional targets, and if we can find agents that hit those targets precisely, no one will need surgery. It will be like pulling out a plant by the roots instead of treating it with root killer, getting at what is causing the cancer.”
Although nothing about this study would make Dr. Feldman treat patients any differently immediately, he already uses commercially available genomic profiles including Oncodx and Mammaprint in his practice at NYP/Columbia to help determine how likely it is the breast cancer will spread and whether or not chemotherapy is necessary.
Dr. Feldman adds, “No doubt discovering more genetic targets that drive cancer cell growth will improve our ability to treat patients with medications that are specific to their cancer. For someone like me who has been in this field a long time, it’s incredibly inspiring and exciting, to really begin to believe we’re going to see the end of this disease.”
http://www.columbiasurgery.net/2012/10/03/dramatic-news-in-breast-cancer-research/
No comments:
Post a Comment