Investigating the use of extracellular vesicles as a predictive and prognostic biomarker in Triple Negative Breast Cancer patients

Summary

Triple Negative Breast Cancer (TNBC) is an aggressive type of breast cancer mainly treated by chemotherapy. However, response to chemotherapy is poor, probably because the tumours contain a subset of cells, called cancer stem cells, that are resistant to chemotherapy.

We previously showed that looking for genes that are switched on in cancer stem cells could predict the return of cancer in patients who had had chemotherapy treatment for TNBC. In this study, we want to see if these same genes can be detected in the blood of patients with TNBC. These genes would be detected by isolating bits of tumour cells ('vesicles'), which are shed into the blood stream. This would mean that eventually we could test each patient many times during her treatment with a simple blood test, without the need for invasive biopsies or scans. We can also test whether the vesicles themselves change in response to chemotherapy treatment.

We want to test this new approach by recruiting women with TNBC.  We will take blood tests at 7 different times through the course of their chemotherapy treatment, at the same time as blood tests they would have as part of their normal treatment. We will compare our new tests to scans and the assessments of the doctors. If we get a sign in this study that the cancer stem cell genes can be detected using these 'vesicles', larger studies will be undertaken to prove whether they can predict whether patients will respond to chemotherapy.