Why Stanford's new cancer research is give many hope

and a promising cancer research out of Stanford is giving many people hope a team there a team has identified a way to Springer genes that cause different types of cancer so patients and doctors know what to watch for today we're speaking to Dr Christina Curtis professor of medicine and professor of genetics and of biomedical data science about her finding on the evolution of tumors considerate cancer origin story thank you for being here with us Dr Curtis thank you for having me your study is fascinating you're challenging the opinion that most cancers develop as the result of mutations that accumulate during our lifetime what did you find sure so in this new study we analyzed thousands of tumors really spanning the Continuum of disease from pre-invasive not yet malignant through invasive and advanced disease and we really sought to understand the role that hereditary V variation the genes that we inherit from Mom and Dad play in tumor development uh looking globally at this process and what we find is that the path to develop to tumor development is constrained by those uh genetic sequences and really that there is a nuanced interplay the immune system very interesting your study not only explains what type of breast cancer someone could eventually develop but also how aggressive it could be that's right so we've previously defined distinct subgroups of breast cancer and what we find here is that uh the ability of these tumors to perhaps evade immune recognition early may lead to them being more aggressive uh ultimately and and having a higher risk of recurring or resisting treatment and so this provides a new way of thinking about how those tumors develop and potentially to intercept and treat them that's huge my gosh okay and based on your research the genes we inherit from our parents include mutations that can influence the immune response and risk of a cancer is there something we can do to decrease our chances so unfortunately not you know these are genes we inher it but I think it's worth emphasizing that in some cases these these combinations of variants are also protecting us against cancer and what's really matters is that we can use this information potentially to identify individuals that are at High higher risk of developing a recurrence or of developing an Embrace invasive breast cancer so if we can stratify up front we can um personalize and tailor their therapy is there a difference between men and women so this study focused exclusively on women in part because we needed very large data sets and we still have uh less data on male breast cancer though it does occur and um certainly that should be an area that we look at in the future as as well as um really these principles can can be extended to other tumor types yeah you suggest there could be hundreds of additional Gene variants in healthy people that through interactions with the immune system could explain why some people remain cancer free throughout their lives how does that work right so there is a a really complex interplay with our immune system our immune system can see and um potentially surveil these nent tumor cells and eradicate them before they progress so this is something that's actively happening and really what this is telling us is that these genetic variants influence how the immune system sees a tumor and and that's how it sculpts its development so the you know followon implications is of course that this may also matter for how um these tumors progress and how they become resistant to therapy and and future research will investigate that further I think I think it's so interesting that you know we inherit this right from our parents so if there's no history in your family of cancer does that impact anything at all right so a really important Point here is that we're um in this study uh investigating the association with progression from a pre-invasive cancer to an invasive cancer and Beyond additional studies will need to be performed to ask does this influence cancer risk r large it very well may and it's also worth stressing that these are really um variants that are occurring in aggregate it's not a single um alteration it's the combination and is the individual's immune system that also plays a role here so um you know the opportunity is to now use this information which can be obtained from a blood draw to potentially inform an individual's risk a risk of progressing to invasive disease um and Beyond and and of course further studies will need to corroborate this finding but it it's promising that have this new way of looking at the biology congratulations on this this is amazing and I love that the immune system plays a huge role in this is there anything that we can actively do to strengthen our immune system well that's a wonderful question I think there is much ongoing research um looking at the role of exercise diet and and behavior in in immunity and so that is of course important that hasn't been examined in this particular study but I think um it's an important and you know our immune systems change over time as well so um right now this isn't information we can use but I think it really warrants further research as we think about this complex interplay and how tumors originate very important how are you hoping your study helps researchers and doctors better predict and fight cancers sure so The Field's making tremendous progress in understanding breast cancer and these kinds of insights can allow for more personalized screening and treatment and of course many questions remain unanswered we believe that these findings um have implications for assessing an individual's risk of developing an invasive breast cancer and may also ultimately inform how we think about treating these individuals and really with the long-term view of intercepting cancer before it develops so um there's much follow-on work to be pursued but it provides a really New Perspective for thinking about this problem that um I hope will help us Advance this and bring more personalized interventions and treatments to patients incredible work thank you Dr Curtis thank you for being here with us today and thank you so much for your research I'm sure it's going to help so many people thank you

Channel: ABC7 News Bay Area

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Keywords: abc7 news, abc news, new story, abc

Id: AsTdf2_OZ7k

Length: 6min 43sec (403 seconds)

Published: Fri May 31 2024