- The technique is based on identifying cell surface proteins that can be used as targets.
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| The new treatment from Spanish researchers to more effectively attack the most aggressive breast cancer / Pixabay |
Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women, with about 33,000 cases per year. And, although therapeutic options generally manage to eliminate it, there is a type that affects a not insignificant proportion of patients and for which there is still no cure: triple-negative breast cancer.
Specific targets
Now, scientists from the Cancer Center for Biomedical Research Network (CIBER) have developed a therapeutic technique that significantly improves the results of those available up to now. Specifically, and as detailed by the CRIS Against Cancer Foundation, which has financed the project, it consists of the analysis of the surface some, the proteins present on the surface of the tumor cells, to find therapeutic targets among them.
In fact, these proteins constitute a great option as a target for treatments, since due to their location (on the cell surface) they are easily accessible and, due to the genetic nature of cancer (cancerous growths are caused by certain damage to the DNA of the cells that make them reproduce without control) some of them are altered in cancer cells, which allows acting exclusively or preferentially against them without damaging healthy tissue.
Once potential targets have been identified, there are several therapies that can target them. The most appropriate, perhaps, belongs to the branch of immunotherapy, an approach that in recent years has made its way among the traditional options (chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and surgery) due to its good results and its (comparatively) fewer adverse effects. It involves the use of drug-conjugated antibodies (DCA), an antibody attached to a drug, which gives it a 'double' antitumor action.
clinic road
For now, the strategy has been tested in vitro and in animal models, contexts in which it has shown great efficacy and specificity in triple-negative tumors, blocking the replication cycle of cancer cells and even achieving the death of the cells. themselves.
This means that the treatment will still have to go through clinical trials exploring its efficacy and safety in humans before it is considered viable for use in the clinical setting. However, the results obtained so far crown it as a promising option and an example of the latest and vertiginous advances in the oncology field.