Gene test to predict nerve damage from bone cancer treatment
1 March 2011 - Scientists have found DNA variants that predict whether patients treated for a bone marrow cancer are likely to develop a debilitating side-effect.
All common treatment regimens for multiple myeloma contain at least one drug with the side-effect of peripheral neuropathy – a disorder of the nervous system that can cause altered sensation, tingling, numbness and severe pain, and can sometimes be permanent.
About one-third of patients in the study who were treated with either thalidomide or vincristine developed neuropathy, compared to only 6.4 per cent of patients whose treatment combination did not include these drugs.
Professor Gareth Morgan and his team analysed DNA from 1,500 patients with multiple myeloma and scanned almost 1,000 genes that had previously been linked with cancer growth and treatment response.
They found five regions of DNA linked to developing neuropathy after thalidomide treatment and nine linked to vincristine; indicating each type of drug causes neuropathy through a different biological pathway.
Their findings raised the possibility patients could have their blood screened for neuropathy risk genes.
“Doctors could use this simple and useful test to identify patients at high risk of neuropathy,” Professor Morgan says. “At-risk patients could be closely monitored, and potentially given alternative treatments, lower doses or additional therapy to reduce side-effects.”
This study also has implications for other cancer types as vincristine, for example, is commonly used to treat acute lymphoblastic leukaemia and lymphoma.
