In an Australian first, researchers have developed a new drug to protect a breast cancer patient’s heart, without sacrificing life-saving cancer treatment.
Breast cancer is the second most commonly diagnosed cancer in Australia, and while treatments like chemotherapy and antibody-based therapies are helping patients survive, they can also increase the risk of severe cardiovascular disease.
While in recent decades cancer-related mortality has declined, heart disease related to cancer treatment is now emerging as a significant threat. Up to 30 per cent of breast cancer patients treated with chemotherapy may develop cardiac toxicity, with some effects not appearing until five to 20 years after treatment.
In pioneering new research, a team of scientists in the Heart Research Institute’s (HRI’s) Heart Muscle Laboratory are racing to create change.
Led by Professor Julie McMullen, the lab is using microscopic 3D ‘mini-hearts (tiny, beating spheroids the size of a grain of sand) created from patient blood samples to test drugs that could one day be safely administered alongside chemotherapy.
The model was developed in the laboratory of Associate Professor Carmine Gentile (University of Technology Sydney & HRI) who is working closely with Professor McMullen’s team.
The aim is not only to identify safer preventative drugs, but also to understand why some patients are more susceptible to cardiotoxicity than others. It’s an ambitious cardi-oncology project that is helping pave the way for more personalised treatment in the future.
“We currently have limited knowledge on why cardiotoxicity occurs and which women will be most impacted. This research has the opportunity to identify women at risk of cardiotoxicity before symptoms are present, so we can develop drugs to protect the heart during and after cancer treatment,” said Professor McMullen.
HRI researcher Dr Clara Liu Chung Ming is also working on the project and says “it’s about saving hearts as well as lives”.
“Some women survive breast cancer only to face heart failure, arrhythmias, or other cardiovascular conditions years later which is sometimes even worse than the cancer itself,” Dr Liu Chung Ming said, adding that the work is about preventing that from happening.
While the research project is still in the pre-clinical stage, but the HRI team has already developed one promising cardioprotective drug candidate. They are working closely with hospitals including Chris O’Brien Lifehouse and is actively seeking to expand to more centres across Greater Sydney. The next step will be to use breast cancer patient blood samples to generate personalised mini hearts.