New insights into why breast cancer drugs fail for some women

Conclusion This laboratory study aimed to investigate the mechanism behind how some oestrogen receptor-positive breast cancer tumours develop resistance to the hormone drugs tamoxifen and aromatase inhibitors. This resistance effectively makes these drugs powerless, causing the cancer to return. The researchers seemed to find at least part of the answer as to why resistance to aromatase inhibitors can develop. In some cases, they found treatment triggered the amplification of the CYP19A1 gene, which increased the production of aromatase, essentially allowing the cells to keep making their own oestrogen. But this doesn't seem to tell us why drug resistance to tamoxifen develops. This seems to be the result of another mechanism and not related to the production of aromatase. The researchers hope to investigate how resistance towards tamoxifen is established. They hope to further this research to work on developing a test that will be able to identify whether a woman's tumour has started to make its own supply of oestrogen through increased aromatase production. One of the researchers, Dr Luca Magnani, commented: "In many cases when an aromatase inhibitor stops working in a patient, doctors will try another type of aromatase inhibitor. "However, our research suggests that if the patient's cancer has started to make their own aromatase, this second drug would be useless. This is why we need a test to identify these patients." The hope is that finding out more...
Source: NHS News Feed - Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Cancer Medication Genetics/stem cells Source Type: news