Therapy 'may slow tumour growth'

Scientists believe they have identified a gene that may be able to limit the growth of breast cancer tumours.

The US National Cancer Institute found in tests on mice that tumours containing the Brd4 gene ended up 10 times smaller than ones that did not.

And an analysis of studies involving human breast cancer patients revealed the presence of the gene may be useful as a predictor of survival chances. Cancer experts said more research was needed into the findings.

Researchers chose to study the effect of the Brd4 gene as it is known to influence the growth of cells.

They believe the findings may not be limited solely to breast cancer, although they have yet to test that fully.

In this study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers inserted copies of the gene into some of the mice breast cancer tumours. They found after 28 days the size of the tumours had been limited to a tenth of the size of those without the gene, while the spread of the disease to the lungs was much more limited.

The team then carried out research into 1,240 patients, split between five separate groups. They found those with the Brd4 gene had much better survival rates - in some of the groups it was nearly double the rate than those without the gene. Researchers said as well as being able to predict the consequences of the disease, a treatment could even be developed to stimulate or introduce the gene.

Report author Kent Hunter said: "Potentially, this treatment could help manage and control a cancer. That is still a long way off, but in the more immediate future we could at least predict the course of the disease."

But Dr Julie Sharp, of Cancer Research UK, said it was too early to tell if a treatment could be developed because the tests had only been done on mice. She added: "Identifying better tools to predict which cancers will spread is an important goal of many cancer researchers. This work suggests that measuring Brd4 gene activity could have a role to play, although more work is needed before scientists will know whether it can reliably predict aggressive behaviour in breast or any other type of cancer."