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Chromosome Instability Linked to Survival
Submitted by goodwi02 on Tue, 05/07/2011 - 12:46
Lab Head Charles Swanton and Research Fellow Sarah McClelland (Translational Cancer Therapeutics) have had their paper ‘Paradoxical Relationship between Chromosomal Instability and Survival Outcome in Cancer’ published in Cancer Research (2011) 71:3447-3452.
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| Charles Swanton |
The research has revealed that classifying tumours according to their levels of chromosomal instability could improve predictions for patient survival, helping doctors plan treatment strategies. It showed that tumours with the most extreme chromosomal instability had a better outcome. During the research the chromosomal instability (CIN) status of more than 3,000 cancer patients were examined.
The Translational Cancer Therapeutics lab found that patients whose tumours had moderate CIN were less likely to survive than those with very low levels of CIN. But, intriguingly, tumours with the most extreme chromosomal instability – including some receptor negative breast cancers - had a better outcome.
Chromosomally unstable cells are created when cell division faults can create more - or fewer - than the usual 46 chromosomes in daughter cells. These cells are linked to poor survival of patients because potentially cancer-causing mistakes are replicated haphazardly when cells divide. This generates differences from one cancer cell to the next which may enable the cancer to resist drug treatment.
The results suggest that some chromosomal instability is advantageous to cancer cells - which continue to survive and divide despite the abnormalities. But once chromosomal instability exceeds a certain threshold, the cancer cell cannot function effectively – and may die.
Group Leader Charlie Swanton said, “It may sound paradoxical but a key challenge in cancer medicine is to determine which patients won’t derive any additional benefit from cancer chemotherapy. This may either be because patients are resistant to certain drugs - or that they have an excellent chance of survival without the need for chemotherapy. Identifying distinct patient subgroups might help doctors plan personalised cancer care and avoid unnecessary treatment.” See the abstract.
