Breakthrough aims at stopping cancer’s return
Published: October 24, 2004
Scientists are on the brink of trialling ground-breaking breast cancer research but need funding for it to go ahead.
Sally Stephenson, of the Basil Hetzel Institute at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, is heading research into a test to predict which breast cancer patients the disease will revisit.
Dr Stephenson said statistics showed about 25 per cent of patients would relapse within five years. “We’re trying to come up with ways of finding those 25 per cent of patients so they can be offered therapy,” she said.
The test uses magnetic beads coated with a special antibody – a protein that recognises and sticks to another protein.
This antibody sticks to the cancer cells or the cells from which scientists know tumours grow.
Researchers mix these magnetic beads with a sample of blood from a patient. They then can analyse the beads to see if they have picked up any cancer cells.
Dr Stephenson, a senior research fellow within the Department of Haematology and Oncology, said preliminary results were “really promising”. Researchers need to trial the test with more than 450 patients to gain enough data. That is expected to cost $200,000 over three years.
Queen Elizabeth Hospital Research Foundation executive director Maurice Henderson said the project was just one example of how crucial funding was in the fight against diseases such as breast cancer.
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