Scientists line breast, ovarian cancers
BY LIZ SZABO USA TODAY
Monday, September 24, 2012
9/24/12 at 6:14 AM
ST. LOUIS - Scientists announced Sunday that they have finished mapping virtually all of the genetic mutations in breast cancer, an effort that could soon change the way patients are treated and eventually help researchers develop better treatments.
"The catalogue of human breast cancers is nearly complete," said study co-leader Matthew Ellis of the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. "It's the breast-cancer equivalent of putting a man or woman on the moon."
Among the most striking findings: One of the most lethal types of breast cancer is genetically closer to a kind of ovarian cancer than it is to other breast tumors, according to the paper, published online today in Nature.
That discovery could soon produce real benefits for breast cancer patients, Ellis says. Women with so-called basal-like breast tumors - also known as triple-negative cancers - would likely do better on a much less toxic chemotherapy regimen, which is the standard of care in ovarian cancer.
Such shifts show that doctors are beginning to change the way they look at cancers, focusing less on a tumor's organ of origin and more on the inner workings of its nucleus, down to the molecular level, Ellis says.
"Just because it's a breast cancer doesn't mean it's like every other breast cancer," said Brad Ozenberger, who oversees the research project, called The Cancer Genome Atlas, at the National Institutes of Health.
The genome atlas could give drug companies ideas for new drugs that target key genetic mutations in cancer, Ozenberger says. In addition, the catalogue of genetic mistakes can also help scientists better understand how cancers develop and spread, Ozenberger says.
For example, they may learn that a newly discovered gene is involved in the immune system - providing a clue to how cancer eludes the body's normal defenses. Already, the program has given researchers clues that ovarian and triple-negative breast tumors could be vulnerable to drugs that block new blood vessel growth, which aim to starve tumors.
Original Print Headline: Breast cancer link found
