Researchers identify tracers in the body that improve breast cancer diagnosis and treatment

Mark
Written By Mark

After advances in the field of medical imaging have contributed to enhancing the chances of detecting and treating breast cancer, it has now extended to “tracers” for tumors and metastases in the body, which are being tested in advanced units in France.

The principle is based on injecting particles with weak radioactivity, called radiotracers, intravenously, and once they reach the blood, they spread throughout the patients’ bodies.

Romain David Seban, a specialist in nuclear medicine and researcher at the Curie Institute, said during a press conference before the launch of the annual “Pink October” campaign dedicated to raising awareness about the importance of breast cancer screening in France, that “part of the molecule emits radiation, which allows the production of images, while it clings to Another part of one of the receptors.”

The expert explained that behind “the concept that sometimes seems a little scary because of the word nuclear,” there is a technology that helps improve treatments.

With more than 61,000 new cases every year in France, breast cancer remains the most common cancer among women, and the most deadly, as it causes the death of nearly 12,000 women in the country annually.

Breast cancers differ according to their stage of development, their location in the organ or cells from which they spread, the presence of hormonal receptors, and also in terms of therapeutic responses.

To improve diagnosis, detect potential metastases, measure or even predict response to treatments, maximum information is needed, and nuclear medicine can play a role in this.

Biopsy

This imaging, which is already in use, does not require a biopsy, and provides information about the entire body, as the biopsy is very targeted, according to specialists in this technology.

Dr. Siban cited the example of a patient “with triple-negative breast cancer who came in for a follow-up evaluation to see if her disease was controlled or not.”

“Because there were no metastases, she was eligible for treatment with surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy, as well as immunotherapy because her tumor was relatively aggressive,” he said.

Particularly aggressive triple-negative breast cancer affects about 9,000 women each year, often very young. It is very difficult to treat, especially because it does not respond to doses of estrogen or progesterone, and it is the basis for other treatments commonly used in other forms of breast cancer.

Technological advances reduce the time it takes to obtain images after injecting radioactive tracers, reducing waiting periods and fatigue for patients, according to specialists.

Currently, nuclear medicine specialists mainly use a machine called PET, which is a scanner equipped with a radioactive tracer that targets the body’s most sugar-consuming cells, including cancer cells.

revolution

But sometimes results are deceptively positive, or, conversely, some metastases may be invisible.

Therefore, other methods are being tested in the future, in the hope of improving diagnosis, or even predicting reactions to treatments.

The Curie Institute, the leading European center for breast cancer, relies in particular on a tracer that binds to specific cells in the tumor microenvironment, namely fibroblasts.

With clinical trials currently being conducted on triple-negative breast cancers, the new generation of radiotracer “FAPI” tools can better identify metastases, evaluate the effectiveness of treatment or detect relapse early, according to specialists in the field.

Researchers are also testing a tracer that targets hormone receptors, particularly estradiol, to see if they are present in some patients’ breasts because they determine how effective hormone therapy is.

“A growing number of trials seek, by combining imaging and nuclear medicine, to identify patients who will respond well,” said Anne-Vincent-Salomon, director of the Women’s Cancer Institute, which was co-created by the Curie Institute, the University of Paris Sciences and Arts and the National Institute of Health and Safety for Medical Research (INSERM). “For whom we can reduce chemotherapy and/or immunotherapy tomorrow, or even who can no longer respond to the operation, it is a revolution.”

In the future, a weapon used against other types of cancer (thyroid, neuroendocrine tumors or prostate) could also be used against breast cancer.