Progress made as search for breast cancer cure continues

October 7, 2009 – 2:22 pm by Colette Pilkus

Since October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, I thought it would be appropriate to bring attention to some recent news and findings in the field.

A researcher from Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine has found a way to strengthen the breast’s protective barriers to prevent cancer from metastasizing.

The researcher found that when the leukemia drug dasatinib is combined with the breast cancer drug doxorubicin, the mix inhibits breast cancer cell invasion by half.

Breast cancer becomes deadly when it travels outside the mammary ducts, enters the bloodstream, and spreads to the bones, liver, or brain. Currently, there are only drugs that try to stop the division of cancer cells within the ducts. Until now, no drugs specifically targeted the invasion and spread of breast cancer to the organs.

Dasatinib is marketed as Sprycel by Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. First approved in 2006, dasatinib targets an enzyme called the SRC kinase, which is believed to play a key role in breast cancer invasion and metastases.

In other breast cancer news, researchers at the Wistar Institute have identified a gene (KLF17) involved in the spread of breast cancer throughout the body. The function of KLF17 was previously unknown. The researchers also demonstrated that the expression of KLF17 along with Id1, another gene known to regulate breast cancer metastasis, predicts whether the disease will spread to the lymph nodes.

In this study, researchers introduced a genetic screen targeting 40,000 mouse genes into mammary tumor cells that do not usually spread, and then transplanted those cells to the mammary fat pads in mice where they would be expected to remain. Through RNA interference technology, they then reduced the expression of a metastasis-suppressor gene in five mice, one of which developed lung metastases in seven weeks. RNA retrieved from the metastasized cells corresponded to KLF17.

In September, Esperance Pharmaceuticals Inc. started a Phase I study of EP-100, which is designed to kill cancer cells without harming normal cells. EP-100 is designed to seek and destroy cells that over-express luteinizing hormone releasing hormone receptors (LHRH), which are over expressed in breast, prostate, endometrial, pancreatic, ovarian, skin, and testicular cancers.

The study will enroll 36 adult patients with solid tumors whose tumor biopsies indicate that they have excessive LHRH receptors. EP-100 will be administered intravenously for three out of four weeks.

Results from preclinical studies of EP-100 have shown that the drug regresses tumors in breast, prostate, ovarian, and endometrial cancer xenografts in mice.

Tags: breast cancer, Bristol-Myers Squibb, EP-100, Esperance Pharmaceuticals, Sprycel