and there have been some suggestions that now other, less toxic drugs for many breast cancer types are available, that anthracyclines use should reduce further.
“Topoisomerases are proteins that help to untangle and repackage the nearly two meters of DNA within the nucleus of each cell in our body – a space nearly a million times smaller,” said Curtis. Next, they looked at chromatin genes in samples from over 1000 early-stage breast cancer patients and correlated the expression of these chromatin genes with response to anthracyclines. The scientists were able to narrow down their lens to 54 chromatin genes associated with anthracycline response.
“This is a window into the future for potentially reducing the number of patients that may experience toxicity who may not receive much clinical benefit from the drugs. But it’s way too early to make clinical decisions, saying we will or won’t treat based on this data. Certainly this is really very interesting and has tremendous potential,” said Melner.