HER2 Support Group Forums - View Single Post - New, effective and less toxic therapeutic option for patients with HER2-positive brea

gdpawel · 02-25-2013, 11:10 PM

What's up and coming in breast cancer treatment is not "breast" cancer treatment. I was telling someone on another cancer board about the way doctors are now starting (or at least should be looking) to consider the biology of the tumor cell along with the site of the tumor when determining treatment. There are no breast cancer drugs or lung cancer drugs or ovarian cancer drugs. They are learning that the same proteins and pathways are involved in many types of cancer.

I mentioned on the other thread here about Perjeta (pertuzumab) that functions by preventing dimerization of HER-2 with the other members of the human epidermal growth factor family, HER-1, HER-3 and HER-4. It is the failure to completely inhibit all the kinase family members that limits efficacy of these drugs. And even Perjeta showed only modest antitumor activity until they found more comprehensive blockade of HER signaling family when used with Herceptin.

It's going to take sequential application of anticancer drugs to enhance cell death. One of the truest breakthroughs comes with metabolomics, that finds the most active combinations to inhibit the cross-talk between pathway (horizontal inhibition) over drug combinations that target the same pathway at different downstream points (vertical inhibition). Laying siege to cancer cells' supply lines may cast a wider net than targeted therapies aimed at rare oncogenic mutations.

Altering cancer metabolism is not just about energy supply, but also directly affects gene expression through regulating chromatin, the protein packaging around spools of DNA by opening or closing a spool to raise or lower the activity level of a gene in that area, and close the loop between metabolism and genetics. It is now widely acknowledged that cancer metabolism is a main player in cancer and developing anti-metabolism treatments should be a main focus of researchers and pharmaceutical companies.

Perjeta is one of a number of new targeted drugs in breast cancer therapy. And metabolomics is a newly emerging field of "omics" research concerned with comprehensive characterization of the "small molecule" metabolites in biological systems (i.e. PECAM-1 and T-DM1 + Perjeta).

02-25-2013, 11:10 PM	#7
gdpawel Senior Member Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: Pennsylvania Posts: 1,080	What's up and coming in breast cancer treatment is not "breast" cancer treatment. I was telling someone on another cancer board about the way doctors are now starting (or at least should be looking) to consider the biology of the tumor cell along with the site of the tumor when determining treatment. There are no breast cancer drugs or lung cancer drugs or ovarian cancer drugs. They are learning that the same proteins and pathways are involved in many types of cancer. I mentioned on the other thread here about Perjeta (pertuzumab) that functions by preventing dimerization of HER-2 with the other members of the human epidermal growth factor family, HER-1, HER-3 and HER-4. It is the failure to completely inhibit all the kinase family members that limits efficacy of these drugs. And even Perjeta showed only modest antitumor activity until they found more comprehensive blockade of HER signaling family when used with Herceptin. It's going to take sequential application of anticancer drugs to enhance cell death. One of the truest breakthroughs comes with metabolomics, that finds the most active combinations to inhibit the cross-talk between pathway (horizontal inhibition) over drug combinations that target the same pathway at different downstream points (vertical inhibition). Laying siege to cancer cells' supply lines may cast a wider net than targeted therapies aimed at rare oncogenic mutations. Altering cancer metabolism is not just about energy supply, but also directly affects gene expression through regulating chromatin, the protein packaging around spools of DNA by opening or closing a spool to raise or lower the activity level of a gene in that area, and close the loop between metabolism and genetics. It is now widely acknowledged that cancer metabolism is a main player in cancer and developing anti-metabolism treatments should be a main focus of researchers and pharmaceutical companies. Perjeta is one of a number of new targeted drugs in breast cancer therapy. And metabolomics is a newly emerging field of "omics" research concerned with comprehensive characterization of the "small molecule" metabolites in biological systems (i.e. PECAM-1 and T-DM1 + Perjeta).