New thesis maps resistance to endocrine treatment in breast cancer
Many women with breast cancer receive endocrine therapy, also known as anti-hormonal therapy, to reduce the risk of the disease returning. However, for a significant group, the treatment does not work as intended. A new doctoral thesis from Karolinska Institutet maps tumours from patients who have relapsed despite ongoing endocrine therapy, to understand why the treatment fails and how these patients can be identified earlier.
We asked Caroline Schagerholm Stanev, doctoral student at the Department of Oncology-Pathology, to tell us more about her thesis.
"In my thesis, I have studied why some breast cancer patients do not respond to endocrine therapy, a treatment that most patients receive. By analysing both clinical and molecular data, we have identified factors that may contribute to therapy resistance and characteristics that, already at diagnosis, can help us identify patients who may need other treatment options."
What are the most important findings?
“We see that it is important to analyse the most recent tumour sample in the event of a relapse, as genetic changes may differ from those in the original tumour. Otherwise, there is a risk that the patient will not receive the treatment most likely to benefit them. By combining clinical data with gene‑level analyses, we also observe that certain molecular changes in the primary tumour may be linked to how well patients respond to endocrine therapy. We also identify changes that, in our data, are associated with a less favourable prognosis.”
What significance could your results have in the future?
"Treatment resistance is a significant clinical problem, and we need reliable methods to predict which patients will respond to different treatments. Hopefully, our results can contribute to the development of current diagnostics, so that patients are more likely to receive the treatment that is believed to benefit them most."
Doctoral thesis
Monday 17 mars at 9:00, CCK Lecture hall, R8:00, Visionsgatan 56
Dissertation
"Clinical and molecular studies of endocrine resistance in breast cancer"