New treatment to detect and fight breast cancer

The study published in the Journal of Immunology has shown that the body’s own immune system could soon be used as a powerful new treatment to detect and fight breast cancer, according to the peer reviewed study published in the Journal of Immunology.

Project leader, Dr John Maher says: ‘This three year study demonstrates that we can make it possible for white blood cells to kill breast cancer cells. We hope to follow this study with a clinical trial in patients with incurable breast cancer’.

Breast cancer is the most common cancer in the UK and accounts for nearly one in three of all cancers in women. Every year in the UK over 44,000 women and 300 men are diagnosed with breast cancer, and around 12,500 women and 100 men will die from the disease. The research for this study has been funded by Breast Cancer Campaign.

White blood cells play an important role in recognising and fighting infection, such as a cold or flu, by spotting proteins in the bacteria which cause the infection that are different from normal cells. But they are currently unable to recognise cancer cells.

New method

Dr Scott Wilkie, working with Dr Maher on the study, has developed a method to alter white blood cells so they are able to identify and kill breast cancer cells.

Dr Wilkie is confident that this treatment could work in humans by extracting the patient’s white blood cells from a blood sample, modifying them in the laboratory and then introducing them back into the patient, similar to a blood transfusion.

Pamela Goldberg, Chief Executive, Breast Cancer Campaign said: ‘This research could benefit thousands of women with advanced or incurable breast cancer. We hope that this remarkable work can be translated into treatments for patients in the future’.

Source: By King's College London