2023-11-15 21:00:03
Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men. It is estimated that this year 3,600 new cases will be diagnosed in Spain. Despite the belief that it is a cancer of older people and that it is not fatal, it is estimated that 6,000 patients will die from this tumor in 2023 in Spain.
Most cases of prostate cancer that are detected are in the early stages, and in many cases the tumor is not lethal or progresses slowly and is curable. However, when the diagnosis is late, in almost 10% of cases, advanced disease appears. It is a cancer with a poor prognosis, although in recent years there has been great progress.
The last one is detailed today in ‘Science Traslational of Medicine‘, although for now it is only in an experimental model.
Researchers of the Dana Faber Cancer Institute (USA) have focused on a class of advanced prostate cancer patients with tumors harboring RB1 gene loss or neuroendocrine features, who often have a poor prognosis and limited treatment options.
It is known that the changes epigenetic They can make prostate cancer resist treatment by turning genes on or off. An epigenetic mechanism tags genes with DNA methylation marks.
Targeted therapy
The team of researchers at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute has discovered, in experiments using patient-derived preclinical models of advanced prostate cancer, that inhibiting DNA methylation with decitabine, a drug used in the treatment of certain cancers of the blood, slows tumor growth specifically in a subset of advanced patients with prostate cancers that have neuroendocrine features or loss of the RB1 gene.
The results of this research, they say, open the door to a possible treatment strategy specifically aimed at this population that includes decitabine, therapy targeting B7-H3 or both in combination.
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