Researchers from Cima and the University Clinic of Navarra have discovered a biomarker capable of predicting heart damage associated with treatment with a type of conventional chemotherapy, anthracyclines, in patients with breast cancer, the most common type of cancer in women. this finding could help identify patients at risk of cardiac toxicity after chemotherapy and pre-treat them with cardioprotective therapies that can stop the deterioration of the heart and the appearance of cardiotoxicity.
Anthracyclines are used in the treatment of cancer. However, its use is restricted due to its cardiotoxic effects.
Scientific studies show that cancer survivors have an eight times higher risk of developing cardiovascular disease than the general population. This data makes cardiovascular toxicity one of the most serious complications of cancer treatment.
“The problem in cancer patients is that cardiotoxicity is detected when it is already too late. The damage has already been done, which increases the likelihood that they will develop serious heart disease in the future.” Susana Ravassafrom Cima Universidad de Navarra and principal investigator of the work published in Cancers.
Until now, the most used markers to try to predict if a patient is going to develop cardiotoxicity are cardiac imaging markers (echocardiography), which detect heart malfunction, and blood biomarkers that detect damage to the contractile cells of this organ, but the predictive efficacy of these methods continues to be questioned.
In this work, researchers have used a peptide derived from collagen synthesis (PICP) as a biomarker of another lesion present in the vast majority of heart diseases, fibrosis, obtaining promising results. In this study, in which 157 patients with breast cancer have participated, «we have verified that chemotherapy with anthracyclines increased PICP levels and that this alteration was associated with a future development of cardiotoxicity» explains Ravassa.
“This advance is especially relevant in breast cancer as the most prevalent cancer in women and, particularly, in those who have had breast implants placed, which can make cardiological evaluation difficult using echocardiography. In oncology it is a priority to find biomarkers in the blood that predict the toxicity of systemic therapies, to individualize these therapies to the characteristics of each patient and each tumor, improve quality of life and the safety of treatments and thus avoid complications in the medium and long term,” says Martha Santistebanspecialist of the Department of Medical Oncology of the Clinic.
This advance is especially relevant in breast cancer as the most prevalent cancer in women and, particularly, in those who have had breast implants placed
This group of Cima researchers has been working with this fibrosis biomarker for years, demonstrating its clinical utility in patients with various heart diseases. The results of this study indicate «that the use of this biomarker could help us to stratify patients in terms of the risk of developing cardiotoxicity as a consequence of anthracyclines and to develop clinical trials that confirm the efficacy of this fibrosis biomarker as a predictor of heart damage. This will allow us to offer patients, in the early stages of chemotherapy, cardioprotective therapies, preferably with antifibrotic effects, which can slow down the deterioration of the heart and the appearance of cardiotoxicity”, concludes Juan José Gavira, from Cima.