Novel therapy for Hereditary Breast/Ovarian Cancer

European scientists recently discovered a novel therapy to treat a subgroup of patients with hereditary Breast/Ovarian Cancer. Both the EU and the US have approved an accelerated procedure to market this promising new treatment with few side effects. They have now also developed a special technique to keep tumor tissue alive outside the human body. They can use this to identify patients that are likely to respond to the new therapy. The first results suggest that more than a thousand patients in the Netherlands alone may benefit from the new treatment every year.
Most patients with hereditary Breast Cancer have so-called BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutations. These strongly increase their risk of Breast Cancer and Ovarian Cancer. However, the mutations are also the weakness of the tumor cells. The novel treatment exploits this weakness to kill cancer cells and leave healthy cells unharmed. BRCA proteins are involved in repairing breaks in the DNA double helix. Such breaks may cause cell death when left un-repaired. Healthy cells have two methods of repairing these breaks.Tumors with a BRCA defect have lost one of these methods, leaving them with only one.
Researchers at Erasmus MC (Rotterdam, the Netherlands) and LUMC (Leiden, the Netherlands) developed a technique to identify patients that may benefit from the treatment. The new technique enables scientists to keep a biopsy from the tumor alive outside the patient's body. As a result, it is possible to test the treatment on the patient's own tissue. This effectivity test is an important step towards personalized medicine.