New test predicts chemotherapy resistance, aims to reduce side effects

A new test predicts chemotherapy resistance, helping patients avoid unnecessary side effects. Photo / 123rf

A breakthrough test can successfully predict whether chemotherapy will work so patients can avoid needless side effects.

The test, developed by the University of Cambridge, looks at the structure of tumour DNA and forecasts whether it will resist treatment.

It was piloted using data from 840 patients with different types of cancer and found that it could help spot whether treatment was likely to fail for ovarian, prostate, and breast cancers.

James Brenton, a professor of ovarian cancer medicine at the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute, said: “Sadly, there are too many cases where cancer is resistant to chemotherapy treatment – meaning unpleasant side effects for the patient with limited benefit to them".

“Chemotherapy is a mainstay of cancer treatment and saves many lives. Yet in many cases, it has been administered the same way for over 40 years.

“By understanding who is most likely to respond to it, chemotherapy could become a more tailored treatment across different types of cancer.”

The test can accurately predict resistance to treatment of three common types of chemotherapy – platinum-based, anthracycline, and taxane chemotherapy – which are given to nearly 100,000 patients in Britain each year.

Although such treatments can help keep cancer at bay, they are also toxic to healthy cells and can lead to unpleasant side effects such as fatigue, a weakened immune system, nausea, and hair loss.

Experts hope tests will be used after diagnosis to classify patients as either “chemotherapy resistant” or “chemotherapy sensitive” to treatments, to avoid giving them therapies that will not work.

Dr Iain Foulkes, the executive director of research and innovation at Cancer Research UK, which helped fund the research, said: “The days of chemotherapy being offered as a ‘one-size-fits-all’ treatment are ending”.

“Thanks to this research, we are moving towards a future where personalised cancer treatment is an option for many patients.

“Only by delivering more optimised, successful treatment will more people live longer, better lives, free from the fear of cancer.”

Researchers are now working with the pharmaceutical industry to develop the test and will be applying to regulators for its use in the clinic.

They are also developing further tests for other targeted cancer drugs to find out how widely the technology could be used across different cancer types.

Dr Ania Piskorz, the head of genomics at the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute and the co-lead author, said: “It was important to us to create a test that could be easily adopted in the clinic, using material we already collect during diagnosis and well-established genomic sequencing methods.

“The test is based on the full DNA sequence that we get from these methods, and we can adapt it to work alongside other genomic sequencing methods that are commonly used to personalise treatment for cancer.”

The study was published in the journal Nature Genetics.