Researchers from NUI Galway have made a breakthrough in their studies into breast cancer treatment, which could affect a significant segment of sufferers of the disease.
Led by Doctors Sanjeev and Ananya Gupta in NUI Galway, the paper published in Oncogene hones in on a single protein that plays a pivotal role for certain sufferers of breast cancer, those who are ‘oestrogen receptor positive’.
XBP1 is the protein in question, with Sanjeev and his team establishing that it increases the production of NCOA3, which helps the cancer cells avoid anti-oestrogen treatment. Using this information, the suggestion is treatment that uses an XBP1 inhibitor could help oestrogen treatment get the job done.
Oestrogen (and progesterone) are in abundance in women’s bodies, potentially serving as fuel for cancerous cells. Hormone therapy, also called endocrine therapy, adds, blocks, or removes those chemicals to treat the disease.
The NUI Galway team claims one-third of breast cancer patients treated with hormonal therapy suffer a relapse within 15 years, which has proved difficult to understand for scientists. Cancer cells’ reliance on XBP1 as a shield could, therefore, be used against them by allowing tailored inhibitors to pull down the cancer’s defences.
Ananya Gupta said: “The next step is to identify a suitable therapeutic target in the XBP1-NCOA3 pathway. XBP1 is a transcription factor, and transcription factors have been very difficult to target with small molecules. We look forward to developing new ways to target this molecule in breast cancer.”
The project was supported by Breast Cancer Now, with the organisation’s Dr. Richard Berks hopeful of potential improvements to anti-hormone treatments.
“We look forward to further research to find out whether blocking this protein could reduce the risk of a patient’s breast cancer spreading or returning, ultimately helping to stop women dying from the disease. It’s crucial that we continue to find ways to make breast cancer therapies even more effective, and match individual patients with the treatments most likely to work for them.”
Anne Gulland - Author affiliations
Most people do not link the consumption of alcohol with an increased risk of cancer, a report by Cancer Research UK has found.1
In a survey of 2100 adults in England, just 13% of respondents identified cancer when asked, “Which, if any health conditions, do you think can result from drinking too much alcohol?”
The survey also highlighted a lack of understanding of the link between drinking alcohol and the risk of developing certain types of cancer. When asked about seven different cancer types, 80% of respondents said that they thought that alcohol caused liver cancer, but only 18% were aware of alcohol’s link with breast cancer.
The study showed that only one in five people could correctly identify the previous recommended maximum number of units that should not be exceeded in a day, as recommended at the time the survey was carried out, in 2015.
Among drinkers, just one in 10 men (10.8%) and one in seven women (15.2%) correctly identified these recommended limits and used them to track their drinking habits.
Alison Cox, Cancer Research UK’s director of cancer prevention, said, “The link between alcohol and cancer is now well established, and it’s not just heavy drinkers who are at risk. This is reflected in the new guidelines issued by the UK’s chief medical officers that stated that the risk of developing a range of illnesses, including cancer, increased with any amount of alcohol you drink.”
In January this year the United Kingdom’s chief medical officers introduced new drinking guidelines,2 which recommended that men and women should drink no more than 14 units of alcohol a week, spread evenly over three days or more. They also recommended that people abstain from alcohol for several days a week.
Ian Gilmore, chair of the Alcohol Health Alliance UK, said that the public’s lack of awareness of the link between alcohol consumption and cancer was “extremely concerning.”
Gilmore said, “The chief medical officers have been clear in their new alcohol guideline that there is no level of drinking which can be considered ‘safe’ from these risks. As the CMOs emphasise, the public have a right to know about the link between alcohol and cancer and other health risks, so that they can make an informed choice about their drinking habits.”
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