Paris France.- It can stop the progression of certain breast cancers by detecting a genetic mutation early at the heart of tumors and tailoring treatment accordingly, according to a study published Friday.
This report, published in the Lancet Oncology, one of the leading cancer journals, is the first of its kind “to show significant clinical benefit after previously targeting the bESR1 mutation,” its authors summarize.
In breast cancer, cancer cells evolve over time and depending on certain mutations, some They can become resistant to treatment.
So they were studied if necessary detect one of these mutations in time -bESR1- and act accordingly.
To detect this mutation, they used a promising technique in recent years in the world of cancer: the “liquid biopsy”.
Your goal is study the content of the tumors without having to extract them, as in a classic biopsy, tissues of the breast itself, a potentially complex operation with consequences for the patient. This time it is a simple blood draw.
The blood of patients does indeed contain a small part of DNA that comes from cancer cells and it is becoming increasingly well known to isolate and study it.
In patients with this mutation, two groups of approximately 80 people were formed. One continued to receive the original treatment, the other switched to another medication, fulvestrant.
In the second group, cancer progression was interrupted for a higher average of several months.
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Beyond the single bESR1 mutation, the authors consider that the strategy used -use of liquid biopsy and then rapid change of treatment- could serve as a model for future therapeutic strategies.
However, this study has several limitations. First, it does not assess whether this treatment change actually improves patient survival.
On the other hand, he only looked at a certain type of breast cancer, in which the tumor is receptive to estrogen.
This is what allows the hormonal treatments used in this study to work.
This does not include, for example, so-called “triple negative” cancers, which are the deadliest because they are the most complex to treat.
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