Israelis Make Breakthrough in the treatment of breast cancer

(Left to right): Dr. Nour Ershaid, Prof. Neta Erez & Lea Monteran. Photo credit: Tel Aviv University

In yet another major medical breakthrough in the treatment of cancer, scientists from Tel Aviv University have developed a new cancer treatment that they say may significantly enhance the efficacy of chemotherapy in breast cancer patients, reducing the risk for lung metastasis following chemo from 52% to only 6%.

Hebrew University is also a part of CanceRNA, a global consortium that will apply RNA-based therapeutics to successfully unlock anti-cancer immune responses. CanceRNA aims to impact the future of cancer treatment by developing and validating novel RNA-based therapeutics.

And in September, researchers from Tel Aviv University deciphered, for the first time, a mechanism that enables skin cancer to metastasize to the brain and managed to delay the spread of the disease by 60% to 80% using existing treatments. The encouraging study was led by Prof. Ronit Satchi-Fainaro and Ph.D. student Sabina Pozzi of the Sackler Faculty of Medicine at Tel Aviv University.

The new study, which was led by Prof. Neta Erez of the Department of Pathology at TAU’s Sackler Faculty of Medicine, and researchers from her group: Lea Monteran, Dr. Nour Ershaid, Yael Zait, and Ye’ela Scharff, in collaboration with Prof. Iris Barshack of the Sheba Medical Center and Dr. Amir Sonnenblick of the Tel Aviv Sourasky (Ichilov) Medical Center, was Conducted in an animal model and identified the mechanism that generates a cancer-promoting inflammatory environment in response to chemotherapy. Moreover, the researchers found that by adding an anti-inflammatory agent to the chemotherapy, metastasis can be prevented.

Prof. Erez: “In many cases of breast cancer, surgical removal of the primary tumor is followed by a chemotherapy regimen intended to kill any remaining malignant cells – either left behind by the surgeon or already colonizing in other organs. However, while effectively killing cancer cells, chemotherapy also has some undesirable and even harmful side effects, including damage to healthy tissues. The most dangerous of these is probably internal inflammations that might paradoxically help remaining cancer cells to form metastases in distant organs. The goal of our study was to discover how this happens and try to find an effective solution.”

To this end, the researchers created an animal model for breast cancer metastasis. The animals received the same treatment as human patients: surgical removal of the primary tumor, then chemotherapy, followed by monitoring to detect metastatic relapse as early as possible. The disturbing results: metastatic tumors were detected in the lungs of a large percentage of the treated animals – similar to the percentage found in the control group.

The researchers also identified the mechanism through which fibroblasts recruit immune cells, and ‘train’ them to support the cancer. Prof. Erez: “We found that in response to chemotherapy, the fibroblasts secrete ‘complement proteins’ – proteins that mediate cell recruitment and intensify inflammation, often by summoning white blood cells to damaged or infected areas, a process called chemotaxis. When the immune cells reach the lungs, they create an inflammatory environment that supports cancer cells and helps them grow.”

To combat this newly discovered process, the researchers combined the chemotherapy administered to the animals with a drug that blocks the activity of complement proteins. The results were very encouraging: following the combined treatment the percentage of animals developing no metastases rose from 32% to 67%; and the percentage of those with extensive cancer colonization in their lungs decreased from 52% with regular chemotherapy to 6% when the inflammation inhibitor was added.