Grim warning of 180,000 breast cancer deaths

The most comprehensive review of breast cancer research ever carried out has identified 10 key areas where more study is needed.

They include understanding how genetic changes lead to the development of breast cancer, targeting breast screening at those who will most benefit and increasing public understanding of how cancer can be prevented through diet and lifestyle.

Experts are also keen to collect tissue samples to understand more about what happens when cancer begins to spread.

Baroness Delyth Morgan, chief executive of Breast Cancer Campaign, which commissioned the research, said the charity hopes breast cancer can be overcome within 40 years.

But she warned: “If we don’t act now, by 2030 more than 1.2 million women could be living with or after a breast cancer diagnosis and around 185,000 lives could have been lost to breast cancer.

“We want future mothers, daughters and wives to have their breast cancer prevented, cured or for them to outlive the disease, and hope that together we can achieve this by 2050.”

The report – Gap Analysis 2013 – has been developed by more than 100 scientists, clinicians and healthcare workers.

Author Professor Sue Eccles, from the Institute of Cancer Research in London, said more needed to be done to understand changes in cancers that have spread around the body.

“Our biggest problem is knowing what happens when cancers progress and escape from therapy,” she said.

“There’s no point in looking at the primary tumour, 80 per cent of which are curable. It’s the 20 per cent that escape. By only getting material from the primary, we don’t know what the problem is. This is why we really need the material from the secondary cancers.”

Cancer that has spread often displays changes compared with the initial tumour, she said.

“We’re basing our treatments 
on what the primary tumour looks like, and it’s evolved and changed,” Prof Eccles added.

“You need to know what’s going on in that secondary cancer or the one that’s relapsed after therapy. It’s a different beast.”

Other gaps include the need 
to develop tests to predict how well patients will respond to chemotherapy or radiotherapy and understanding how to use combinations of drugs and other therapies to tailor treatment for patients.

Professor Alastair Thompson, from the University of Dundee, said: “The impact of the Gap Analysis could be immediate as it gives us scientific rationale to change clinical practice.

“For example, currently, metastatic (spreading) disease is not biopsied in order to tailor treatment, but this could change the way one in six women are treated and provide hope to women with secondary breast cancer, with limited treatment options.”

Breast Cancer Campaign has now formed an action plan which sets out how scientists, funding organisations, industry, policy makers and Government can join forces to address the gaps.

The charity aims to raise £100m over the next decade to address the problems.