Research

Groundbreaking science offers hope for cancer care

Diseases such as cancer have traditionally been tackled using a ‘one size fits’ all approach with no prior knowledge as to how, or even if, individuals will react positively to treatment.

Now, thanks to significant developments in science and technology, there is a new healthcare hope called ‘personalised medicine’ which promises to predict treatment response in patients with a view to improving outcomes and avoiding the adverse side effects associated with some high potency drugs.

A team of academics from Loughborough’s Department of Chemistry, in collaboration with colleagues from the University of Leicester, are contributing to the development of this new form of treatment with their research into personalised chemotherapy. Alison Laing went along to meet them and discuss their award-winning work.

There are some 62,000 programmes of chemotherapy performed in the UK each year. Around 65 percent of those receiving cancer treatment will be given platinum-based chemotherapy, because it’s very effective against many forms of common cancer, such as lung, bowel, stomach and ovarian cancer.

However for some patients, this treatment will have serious side effects and some may not respond to the chemotherapy at all. This is because our risk of disease, and our response to medical treatment, varies from person to person. Our genetic codes, immune systems and our reaction to environmental factors, are entirely unique to us.

Currently, cancer patients receive a standardised treatment based on body surface area and measurements of liver and kidney function. For some people that dose will be inadequate, and for some it will be too high and they suffer side effects such as loss of feeling in the fingers, liver and kidney damage or reduction in white blood-cell count, making them prone to infection.