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Fergus Walsh
Medical correspondent
DNA analysis shows huge genetic diversity in tumours
Kidney cancer cells
Taking a sample from one part of a tumour may not reveal its full genetic identity, according to research by scientists from Cancer Research UK (CRUK).
They carried out the first genome-wide analysis of the genetic variation between different regions of the same tumour using samples of kidney cancer.
They found around two third of genetic faults were not repeated across other biopsies from the same tumour. The research was published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Lead author Professor Charles Swanton, based at CRUK's London Research Institute and the UCL Cancer Institute said:
"This has revealed an extraordinary amount of diversity, with more differences between biopsies from the same tumour at the genetic level than there are similarities. The next step will be to understand what's driving this diversity in different cancers and identify key driver mutations that are common throughout all parts of a tumour."
The tumour samples were donated by patients with advanced kidney cancer being treated at London's Royal Marsden Hospital.
The findings may explain why personalised cancer treatments based on biomarkers from tumour biopsies are not always successful.
The gene sequencing revealed that even samples next to each other in the tumour were not identical.
Professor Swanton said as a clinician the findings did not surprise him but they helped explain why cancers are so difficult to treat once they have spread.
He said cancers adapted as they grew, along 'Darwinian principles' of evolution: "We need to think of tumours like trees, with common mutations in the trunk but the more they spread into the branches the greater the genetic diversity."
Prof Swanton said the findings underlined the importance of early diagnosis of cancer before it had spread, and the need to target the common mutations in the 'trunk' of the cancer.
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Comment number 1.
asybot8th March 2012 - 5:42
No wonder the anti cancer drug industry is making a fortune if at first you do not succeed ..well try this one. The same for Chemo, I have seen way to many friends and neighbors not benefit at all from those treatments either. Sure we have to try and find solutions but if it does not work WHERE is the WARANTY!
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Comment number 2.
Imadgeine8th March 2012 - 8:21
This sounds like really bad news. A lot of the hope for better, more targeted and less toxic treatments in the future centres around the idea you can identify the genes in a tumour and then deliver a drug that will affect only cells with that gene. If a tumour is actually a genetically diverse colony that undermines that prospect.
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Comment number 3.
Unusualj8th March 2012 - 8:38
This work again underlines the need for early diagnosis, giving current treatments a better chance of success.
Coupled with the CRUK's earlier study revealing the large numbers who delay going to their doctor, it seems a lot could be done by educating the public to go their GP straight away.
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Comment number 4.
MPS632078th March 2012 - 8:53
Would 'asybot' rather that the pharmaceutical industry did not try to find newere, safer more effective treatments? Only by innovation, with the inevitable failures along the way, do treatment options progress.
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Comment number 5.
sheila coleman8th March 2012 - 8:56
Comment 3. All well and fine if you get symptoms, I didn't. I had shingles in my head/face and there were nasty effects. Six months later purely through the bowel screening program I was diagnosed with it. [Ivr heard of four similar cases] Ive since had op, coming hopefully to the end of chemo. Don't think just because you do not get symptoms its not there, do the screening program if offered.
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Comments 5 of 17