Researchers from the University of Newcastle have identified a protein in breast cancer, that could be an indicator of whether chemotherapy will be effective of not.
Their studies have found the variant, called P-53, is present at high levels in breast cancer and is associated with its recurrence, and as part of the study researchers discovered the more of the variant in the cancer, the less responsive it became to existing therapies.
The discovery of the protein could be an important first step in better targeting and treating the disease, by inhibiting the variant, thus enhancing people’s responses to currently used cancer treatments. These findings have been confirmed in living subjects.
Breast cancer affects more than 19,000 women every year in Australia and around a quarter of these develop treatment resistance, which is the primary reason women die from the disease.