Our researchers in Spain have made a potentially lifesaving discovery of a new drug that could be used to make radiotherapy work for patients whose cancer is currently resistant to the treatment. And their work has also led to a clinical study for a blood test that could help doctors identify patients with brain cancer who will benefit the most from radiotherapy.
We are very excited about the findings of this study and specifically the drug we have found. We really hope that what we have discovered will lead to a new way to personalise the use of radiotherapy that maximises the benefits for each patient.
When cancer progresses, it often spreads to the brain, where it becomes much more difficult to treat.
In patients with solid tumours such as lung cancer, breast cancer or melanoma, it eventually spreads to the central nervous system in 20-40% of cases. Unfortunately, most patients pass away within 12 months of finding out this has happened.
Radiotherapy is considered the gold standard treatment for tumours that have spread to the brain from elsewhere in the body, but in many cases, these tumours are resistant to treatment. Understanding why this resistance to radiotherapy occurs and how to prevent it would help patients get access to better, more effective treatments that could improve survival of people with advanced cancers.
Researchers at the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO), led by Dr Manuel Valiente, have uncovered how cancer cells that have spread to the brain are able to resist the effects of radiotherapy. The study reveals a new biomarker that could be detected in a simple blood test to indicate whether a patient will respond to radiotherapy.
The researchers also discovered a specific type of drug, called a RAGE inhibitor, which can enter the brain and reverse the resistance to radiotherapy.
Combining the blood test with the new drug could help personalise radiotherapy by identifying people who would benefit from the drug prior to treatment.
Clinical studies are now being started by the team to validate their findings in people. This discovery wouldn’t be possible without Worldwide Cancer Research’s generous and supportive ‘Curestarters’ – donors who help start new cures for cancer – like a woman from Glasgow who raised over £6000 for Dr Manuel Valiente’s research project.
Just two months after losing her daughter, Cathrin, to an aggressive form of breast cancer in May 2020, Anne Logue and her family walked 200km around their hometown, Paisley.
Cathrin received chemotherapy, radiotherapy, had a mastectomy, and was offered a new drug as part of a clinical trial. But whilst the drug was treating the cancer in her chest, an onset of new symptoms were not side effects of the drug, but in fact three tumours in her brain, and in May 2020, Cathrin passed away. Anne said:
“My family and I are overjoyed to hear of the success of Dr Manuel Valiente’s research project, however, the news is bittersweet. Not only is this exactly the kind of research that could maybe have helped Cathrin, but the success is also being announced just weeks before the second anniversary of her death. But life must go on – especially in cancer research – and on behalf of all Cathrin’s family, I applaud Manuel Valientes work. It’s so important that people continue to donate to cancer research so that projects like this one can continue."
Finding new ways to personalise cancer treatments is an exciting area of research that could lead to the start of new cancer cures. Once cancer has spread to other parts of the body, it is much harder to treat, and cancer that has spread to the brain presents a particularly difficult challenge. Dr Valiente’s findings show that a new diagnostic test and even a new treatment for patients with brain metastasis is on the horizon.
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