How to Find Better Treatment Options for Uterine Cancer?

Identifying networks of genes involved in uterine cancer could be potential targets for more effective drug therapies, suggests Clemson University geneticist Allison Hickman’s research. The American Cancer Society estimates that nearly 66,000 women in the U.S. receive uterine cancer diagnoses this year. More than 12,500 women will die from the disease in 2022.

Using data from publicly available genomic databases, researchers built condition-specific biomarker systems for normal uterine tissue and two subtypes of uterine cancer — endometrial cancer, the most common type, and uterine carcinosarcoma, which is more rare, aggressive, and deadly.

These systems allow for a more comprehensive look into the biological networks and pathways affected in uterine cancer than single-gene analyses done in previous studies.

“We’re looking for patterns. In this study, we were able to distinguish genes that had different relationships in uterine cancer than they did in normal uterine tissue,” said Hickman, who earned her PhD in genetics from Clemson in December.

No one gene determines whether a person will develop cancer. Rather, it’s a complex system of genes. This study also found 11 high-priority genes associated with uterine cancer. Those genes are potential targets for drug therapies.

The study findings are published in the journal G3 Genes|Genomes|Genetics.

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The work of researchers in the field is important because scientists can see if therapeutics approved for other types of cancer target the same broken genes.

Adjusting those genes with small doses of drugs that target all of those broken genes at the same time as opposed to with one giant nuclear bomb of poison like a lot of cancer drugs we have right now.

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One hundred years from now, there will be drugs that interact with most of the genes, so that researchers will be able to design cocktails based on the genetic profile of the tumor.

Source-Medindia