Success of Chemotherapy may be Predicted by New Test

Scientists have devised a new test to determine the effectiveness of chemotherapy in cancer patients.

The test devised by the scientists at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute will predict the effectiveness of drugs based on whether a patient's tumour cells are already "primed" for death.

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The researchers report that cancer cells that are on the verge of self-destruction are more likely to succumb to certain chemotherapy agents than cancer cells that have yet to reach that stage.

The discovery suggests that it may be possible to predict which cancer patients are most likely to benefit from chemotherapy, as well as to make chemotherapy drugs more effective by pushing tumor cells closer to the point of suicide.

"Many chemotherapy agents work by damaging structures within cancer cells, particularly DNA and microtubules [tiny tubes used for a variety of cell functions]," says the study's senior author, Anthony Letai, MD, PhD, of Dana-Farber.

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"When the damage becomes so extensive it can't be repaired, the cells initiate a process known as apoptosis, in which they sacrifice themselves to avoid passing the damage on to their descendants."

The researchers found that cancer cells that are closer to this apoptotic threshold are more susceptible to chemotherapy than other cancer cells-and that it's possible to measure how close cells are to that breaking point.

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Letai and his colleagues developed a technique called BH3 profiling to make that measurement. The technique focuses on mitochondria-cell structures where the decision is made whether or not to die-and proteins known as the BCL-2 family.

Within the mitochondria, there are some of the BCL-2 proteins promote apoptosis, while others resist it. The faction that predominates determines whether the cell lives or embarks on apoptosis.

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In the study, researchers first used the technique in myeloma cells from patients who were about to receive chemotherapy.

"We found a high correlation between the cancer cells that were most highly primed and those that were most susceptible to chemotherapy," Letai states.

The researchers went on to study tumors from 85 patients-multiple myelomas, acute myelogenous leukemias, acute lymphoblastic leukemias, and ovarian cancers-and in each case found the same connection.

Chemotherapy proved to be most successful in the tumors that had the greatest mitochondrial priming.

The study has been recently published online by the journal Science.

Source-ANI