Charité launches new EU research project to personalize breast cancer treatment

Adjusting breast cancer therapy to individual patients to avoid ineffective treatment: Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin and eleven partner institutions from six countries have set this as their goal. They have launched the EU research project RESPONSIFY.

Prof. Carsten Denkert, project director at the Charité Institute of Pathology, has explained that the key to success will be the development of new biomarker tests. Biomarker tests indicate whether and how a treatment affects the individual patient. The tests should make response prediction easier, even before surgical tumor removal, in order to determine which therapy is most promising for a patient.

By beginning treatment prior to surgery (neoadjuvant therapy), the tumor should be significantly minimized preoperatively. Only then do doctors remove the remaining tumor tissue. Usually the procedure, in most breast cancer cases, is the other way around: Only after the removal and examination of the tumor do doctors choose a therapy. "The advantage of neoadjuvant therapy is that the effective response of the therapy on the tumor is immediately visible," explains Denkert, "This is why we are better able to judge which biomarkers are appropriate for directing the therapy."

Source: http://www.charite.de