Thousands of breast cancer patients could be saved by osteoporosis drug after scientists discover it stops the disease spreading to the bones

Thousands of women’s lives could be saved after scientists discovered a way to stop breast cancer spreading into the bones.

Experts hope the finding will slash the death rate associated with the disease, which affects more than 50,000 people in the UK every year.

Scientists at Sheffield University say they have discovered a way of stopping cancerous cells from burrowing into a patient’s bones.

Secondary tumours in the bones is the cause of roughly 85 per cent of the 12,000 breast cancer deaths seen in the UK every year.

But the team has discovered a type of drug which may stop cancer penetrating the bones in around 30 per cent of these cases

The drugs, called bisphosphonates, are already in use as treatment for osteoporosis.

The discovery, published last night in the journal Nature, still needs to be......
verified in further clinical trials.

But if the trials are successful, the fact that the drugs are already licensed for human use should accelerate their deployment.

The team, led by experts at Sheffield University, hope that trials will show the drugs can effectively isolate breast cancer in the most at-risk patients, stopping the disease from spreading.

Primary tumours in the breast are relatively easy to deal with, because they can be simply removed with surgery or targeted with chemotherapy or radiotherapy.

But when the cancer spreads to another part of the body - a process known as metastasis - it becomes untreatable.

Secondary breast cancers cause nearly all breast cancer deaths, and the most common site for the disease to spread is the bone.

Now scientists from Sheffield University, the Institute of Cancer Research in London, and the University of Copenhagen have found a key part of the mechanism by which the cancer cells dig into the bone.

The team estimates that the discovery could improve the prognosis of patients with the ER-negative form of the disease, who make up about 30 per cent of all breast cancer patients.

Research co-leader Dr Alison Gartland, a bone specialist at the University of Sheffield, said last night: ‘This is really exciting.

‘ER-negative patients are the ones with the poorest prognosis - they are the ones who really need identifying and treating.

‘This is important progress in the fight against breast cancer metastasis, increasing the chances of survival for thousands of patients.’

Her team discovered that ER-negative breast tumours release an enzyme called LysYl Oxidase - or LOX - which attacks the bones.

The enzyme creates holes in the bones’ surface, allowing the cancerous cells to enter.

‘It is like the LOX enzyme is fertilising the soil of the bone, making it an attractive site for the cancer to grow,’ said Dr Gartland.

‘We have shown that bisphosphonates inhibit this process by stopping LOX interacting with the bone cells.’

The team demonstrated that the drug works on human cells in the lab, and then backed their results up with tests on mice.

‘We had 100 per cent results,’ said Dr Gartland. ‘Of the mice we tested, none developed metastatic tumours.’

A series of clinical trials in humans is now planned, to test how effective the drug is on a large number of patients.

But because bisphosphonates are already used to treat osteoporosis, and are even used by some doctors to increase bone mass in breast cancer patients, they already know it is safe for human use.

They hope that within a few years the drug might be commonly used on the NHS.

As soon as a patient is diagnosed with breast cancer, a simple blood test could be used to identify the presence of the LOX enzyme.

Bisphosphonates would then be administered at an early stage to make sure the cancer does not spread.

Co-leader Dr Janine Erler, of Copenhagen University, said: ‘Once cancer spreads to the bone it is very difficult to treat.

'Our research has shed light on the way breast cancer cells prime the bone so it is ready for their arrival.

‘If we were able to block this process and translate our work to the clinic, we could stop breast cancer in its tracks, thereby extending patients’ lives.’

Around 15 per cent of people with breast cancer die within five years of diagnosis - a rate that would be dramatically reduced if secondary cancers could be stopped.

Katherine Woods of Breakthrough Breast Cancer, last night welcomed the discovery.

She said: ‘By unveiling the role that the protein LOX is playing, these results open up a whole new avenue for research and treatments that could stop breast cancer spreading to the bone.

‘The reality of living with secondary breast cancer in the bone is a stark one, which leaves many women with bone pain and fractures that need extensive surgery just when they need to be making the most of the time they have left with friends and family.

‘Secondary breast cancer kills 1,000 women each and every month in the UK alone and yet we still don’t know enough about how and why breast cancer spreads to stop it.’

And Samia al Qadhi, of Breast Cancer Care, said: 'The findings in this early research indicate an exciting step towards a better understanding of how some breast cancers spread to the bones.

'This could, in future, help lay the basis for new and improved treatments and therapies for people with breast cancer.

'So we look forward to hearing the results from further studies and clinical trials.'

- DailyMail

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