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The Perelman Center for Advanced Medicine on Apr. 13, 2023.
Credit: Abhiram Juvvadi
Researchers at Penn’s Abramson Cancer Center and Perelman School of Medicine recently discovered how to find and treat dormant cancer cells to help identify — and prevent recurrence in breast cancer survivors.
The study analyzed methods of increasing breast cancer survival rates by treating patients with either one or both study drugs. In the clinical trial, dormant tumor cells were cleared from 80% of study participants, and the three-year survival rate with no recurrence was above 90% for participants who received one drug, and 100% for participants who received both.
Researchers wanted to focus on recurrence as 30% of breast cancer patients relapse after initial treatment, and the disease remains incurable. Medical School professor Angela DeMichele emphasized that the study strove to identify “when or if someone’s cancer will come back,” since that is the greatest hurdle to improving survival rates.
“The lingering fear of cancer returning is something that hangs over many breast cancer survivors after they celebrate the end of treatment,” DeMichele told the Medical Press.
The dormant cancer cells — also called minimal residual disease — can reactivate years or decades after the first occurrence. The cells do not show up on regular breast cancer screening tests as they are not active, but they increase the chances of cancer relapse.
Lewis Chodosh, chair of cancer biology and a senior author of the study, said that the “sleeper phase represents an opportunity to intervene and eradicate the dormant tumor cells before they have the chance to come back as aggressive, metastatic disease.”
“Surprisingly, we’ve found that certain drugs that ‘don’t’ work against actively growing cancers ‘can’ be very effective against these sleeper cells,” Chodosh continued. “This tells us that the biology of dormant tumor cells is very different from active cancer cells.”
In a 42-month follow-up period, only two patients experienced cancer recurrence. DeMichele said the team is “encouraged” by the results and is enrolling patients in two more studies to confirm and extend the discovery.
“Our study shows that preventing recurrence by monitoring and targeting dormant tumor cells is a strategy that holds real promise, and I hope it ignites more research in this area,” she continued.
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