Hope for patients with hard-to-treat Breast Cancer

The team from Oxford University and the University of Nottingham found that using a drug called JQ1 can alter how cancer cells respond to hypoxia, or low oxygen, found in more than 50 per cent of breast tumors overall and most commonly in triple negative breast cancer, the form of the disease that is hardest to treat.
JQ1 works by stopping cancer cells adapting to the lack of oxygen. The study results showed that JQ1 slowed tumor growth and limited the number of blood vessels that were produced.
The study explains how the family of drugs to which JQ1 belongs works. Although this group of drugs, called bromodomain and extraterminal inhibitors or BETI, has been used to treat cancer before, this study sheds light on the role these drugs could play in hypoxia, which could prove vital for patients with hard-to-treat breast cancers.