BARCELONA, Aug 12 (EUROPA PRES) –
Researchers and doctors from the Hospital del Mar in Barcelona, the Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute, the Ciber of Oncology (Ciberonc) and two Italian research centers have identified a way to avoid resistance to one of the main treatments for cancer of the HER2 positive breast, one of the most aggressive.
As the hospital explained in a statement this Thursday, the study, published in the journal ‘Clinical Cancer Research’, has demonstrated the role of a protein, neuregulin, in generating resistance to treatment: in patients with high levels of this protein the level of success with the monoclonal antibody Trastuzumab falls.
However, they have found that if the drug is combined with another monoclonal antibody, Pertuzumab, the situation is reversed and full pathological response levels are restored.
Nuregulin is a protein that binds to one of the receptors present in tumor cells, HER3, and that, combined with the HER2 receptor, forms a partner that is the one with the greatest capacity for proliferation and tumor invasion within the cells. Possible activation pathways for HER2 positive breast cancer.
Now it has been possible to establish a correlation between the high levels of this protein, present in 13.2% of the tumors analyzed, and the decrease in the success of treatment with Trastuzumab, as well as the role of Pertuzumab in reversing the situation.
According to the head of the Medical Oncology Service of the Hospital del Mar and director of the Cancer Research Program of the IMIM-Hospital del Mar, Joan Albanell, lead author of the study, the identification of neuregulin as a biomarker that determines the most appropriate treatment for treating a type of breast cancer “will allow a more personalized and effective treatment.”
–
