Breast cancer patients could find out whether they will respond positively to chemotherapy treatment by testing for the activity of certain genes.
In a study published today in the Open Access journal, Journal of Translational Medicine, researchers analysed the genes expressed in the tumours of eighty-three patients with primary breast cancer. The researchers were able to predict which breast tumours would improve from chemotherapy in all cases of partial remission and nearly three quarters of the cases of complete remission based on the analysis of less than sixty genes present in the tumours. The authors of this study state that the ability to predict which patients will respond to chemotherapy, and which would not, would be a "powerful tool" in the treatment of breast cancer.
Olga Modlich and colleagues, from the University of Düsseldorf and Bayer HealthCare AG in Germany, analysed samples of breast tissue from five healthy individuals and tumour tissue from fifty-six breast cancer patients treated with preoperative systemic chemotherapy (PST) with a combination of the anti-cancer drugs epirubicin and cyclophosphamide. The genes present in the samples were analysed using a DNA microarray - a collection of microscopic DNA spots attached to a solid surface used to measure the expression levels of large numbers of genes simultaneously.
From the DNA microarray analysis the authors were able to identify a total of fifty-seven 'predictor' genes active in tumours: thirty-one genes associated with a favourable response and twenty-six genes associated with a poor response. The authors then tested the ability of these genes to predict the response of twenty-seven breast cancer patients, who were then treated with PST.