New Research Introduces Potential Treatment Option for Breast Cancer
A new research from Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland (RCSI) introduces the possibility of determining how effective chemotherapy treatment will be for patients with aggressive breast cancer, particularly those suffering from triple-negative breast cancer.
For the study, Irish researcher Federico Lucantoni examined how the cancer cells react to chemotherapy, concluding that the BCL2 inhibitors, which are known to be of us mainly to treat patients with leukemia, might have better effects.
Triple-negative breast cancer usually affects young women and is found very difficult to get rid of. At the moment, the only option for patients burdened with the disease is chemotherapy.
Get Our Latest News for FREE
RCSI professor of physiology Jochen Prehn, who supervised the research, believes that what they can gather from their ongoing study could lead to the development of a new and more improved treatment for the patients.
"While this will work well for some patients, others may find that their cancer cells don't respond as well as might be hoped to chemo," Prehn said via Irish Times.
"We hope that, if successful in further testing, our research may one day allow doctors to give women more tailored and effective treatments and spare the harsh side effects of chemotherapy in women who are unlikely to respond well to it," he went on to say.
Unfortunately, the research is still in very early stages, and Irish Cancer Society's head of cancer research Dr. Robert O'Connor has warned that that it could take "many more years" for solid results to come out and for the "potential benefits" to be available to patients.
However, he is confident with their progress in this phase of the research, and believes that the study will prove beneficial as they go on.
"It does show the building blocks required to lay the foundations for life-saving cancer research. The more we understand this disease, the better chance we have of stopping it in its tracks," he added.
