Researchers may have founded a targeted treatment for one of the deadliest forms of breast cancer, a conference was due to be told today.
Until now scientists have been unable to design targeted drugs for triple negative breast cancer – which is one of the more common forms of cancer in younger women.
The cancer is frequently aggressive and has to be treated with surgery and chemotherapy.
Now Irish researchers say they have found compounds that seem to prevent the growth of cells of this kind of breast cancer.
Their findings are being reported to a conference of the European Cancer Organisation in Berlin, Germany, today.
Dr Patricia McGowan, of University College Dublin, say that she has found compounds that reduce the growth of cancer cells in the laboratory by as much as 91 per cent.
One is the drug gefitinib and the other known as TMI-002 is under development by Pfizer.
The compounds, known as ADAM inhibitors, were known to disrupt another cell receptor, epidermal growth factor receptor.
Dr McGowan said: "Women with triple negative breast cancer tend to present with higher grade, larger tumours, are younger at diagnosis, have a higher incidence of metastases and have a shorter time to recurrence compared to other breast cancer types.
"One reason for the poor prognosis for this group is the lack of targeted therapies for these women. Having found that an ADAM inhibitor can reduce the proliferation of triple negative breast cancer cell lines, we hope that ADAMs may be a useful therapeutic target."
She added: "We are excited that we have seen an effect in this particularly aggressive subgroup of breast cancers but propose that we will see an effect in other cancer settings also.
"We hope to expand our investigation of these compounds using a larger panel of cell lines, moving into animal models, and eventually into clinical trials."
* The cancer is known as triple negative as it is not stimulated by the hormones oestrogen, progesterone or human epidermal growth factor.
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