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 | | | | | | | | | | |  |  | | | | Science: Test could match breast cancers to treatment">Archive of stories pre April 2007 | | | | | | | 
Archive of stories pre April 2007 | News submitted by: MIB
Researchers have unveiled a test that could be used to predict which breast cancer patients would benefit from anti-hormonal drugs and which would do better on other treatments.
Treatments such as tamoxifen and anastrozole work by interfering with the female hormone oestrogen, which is known to be the most important factor in the development of breast cancer.
But 30% of women currently receiving tamoxifen do not benefit from it and would do better on other treatments, with current testing methods only giving doctors a rough idea of how they might respond to the drugs.
Now scientists at Imperial College London and the Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology have found a way of predicting a woman's likely response to anti-hormonal drugs.
The test could also eventually be used to monitor patients over the course of their treatment and act as an early warning system if the tumour becomes resistant to drugs.
The test is set to enter the second phase of patient trials at Charing Cross Hospital in London early next year to determine its accuracy and potential for clinical use.
Tamoxifen prevents the growth-promoting actions of oestrogen on the cells of the breast and blocks a molecule called the oestrogen receptor (ER). Anastrozole, a new drug, shuts down the production of oestrogen completely and appears to be more effective with less side effects than tamoxifen in post-menopausal patients.
But both drugs are only effective in women whose cancers are reliant on ER for their growth.
Cancer Research UK researchers found that assessing the activity of ER rather than simply how much of it there was, was a better way of predicting what would work.
Leading clinical researcher Professor Charles Coombes said: "Tamoxifen and anastrozole effectively knock out the influence of oestrogen on breast cancer growth.
"There's no point in doing that in patients where ER doesn't work properly, since in these cases the tumour will have learned to live without the hormone.
"Our new test will, for the first time, allow doctors to assess directly the importance of the ER molecule for the growth of a particular tumour, which means they'll know much more accurately whether or not tamoxifen or other anti-hormonal drugs are likely to work."
The new test would help women whose ER activity was low who would benefit more from conventional chemotherapy instead.
It could also tell doctors which treatment the tumour was most likely to respond to, by taking cells and testing how each drug affects ER activity.
http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_833540.html?menu=news.scienceanddiscovery
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