New anti-cancer agents may treat aggressive breast cancer: scientists

Professor Geoff Lindeman and his colleagues have found some of the most aggressive forms of breast cancer are more treatable if chemotherapy is combined with a new type of anti-cancer drug.

According to Xinhua, ABT-737 is one of a new class of anti-cancer agents called BH3 mimetics that target and neutralise the so-called Bcl-2 proteins in cancer cells. Bcl-2 proteins act to 'protect' the cells after they have been damaged by chemotherapy drugs, and prevent the cancer cells from dying.

The scientists were trialling the new treatment on mice while observing tumours of Basel-like breast cancer, a more aggressive subtype of breast cancer and accounts for 20 percent of all cases of breast cancer.

Professor Lindeman said the BH3 mimetics showed promise for treating Basel-like breast cancer.

"Once the tumour is removed ... followed often by some local radiotherapy ... there are very few treatment options apart from chemotherapy because these sorts of tumours don't respond to hormone therapies or anti-HER2 therapies," Professor Lindeman said in a statement released on Tuesday.

Details also at http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/health/2011-07/19/c_13994390.htm