Researchers are testing latest mixtures of medicine to treat breast cancer that’s spread to the bone, due to funding from Breast Cancer Now.
The charity has awarded £142,714 to Professor Penelope Ottewell on the University of Sheffield, to analyze whether a drug called radium-223, which is used to treat prostate cancer that’s spread to the bone, could possibly be combined with other treatments to also profit breast cancer patients.
When breast cancer cells spread from the primary cancer within the breast to other parts of the body it known as secondary or metastatic breast cancer and although treatable, it could’t be cured.
An estimated 61,000 individuals are living with secondary breast cancer within the UK*. And in 70-80 per cent of ladies with secondary breast cancer, the disease has spread to the bone.
Radium-223 is effective at treating prostate cancer that’s spread to the bone and works by releasing radiation that kills cancer cells. But in clinical trials, it hasn’t been as successful in eliminating breast cancer cells within the bone.
Scientists think it is because breast cancer cells are excellent at repairing their DNA when it gets damaged.
Professor Penelope Ottewell and her team will test if radium-223 may be combined with other drugs that concentrate on cancer cells’ ability to repair DNA. They hope the mix of treatments will make radium-223 simpler.
The researchers will perform tests with drugs which are already used to treat cancer, and a few that are still being developed, to seek out out which of them are only at shrinking and eliminating breast cancer cells when combined with radium-223.
They may then test if this mixture can eliminate inactive breast cancer cells within the bone and stop secondary breast cancer from even developing.
Although radium-223 is already used to treat prostate cancer that’s spread to the bone, it’s not been as successful in clinical trials for breast cancer. We hope by combining radium-223 with other drugs, we are able to unlock the potential of this treatment and help 1000’s of ladies with secondary breast cancer.”
Penelope Ottewell, Professor, University of Sheffield
Dr Simon Vincent, Breast Cancer Now’s director of research, support and influencing said: “With 11,500 women dying from breast cancer within the UK every 12 months, it’s vital we proceed to fund research to know and treat this devastating disease.
“Breast Cancer Now’s delighted to fund this latest research that we hope will lay the groundwork for clinical trials into latest treatment mixtures for secondary breast cancer within the bone. And even help to stop secondary breast cancer developing within the bone in the primary place.”