Researchers of the IDIBELL have developed a preclinical therapeutic model to test new treatments for brain metastases in breast cancer patients. The results of the study are published in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences.

Brain metastasis affects 30% of breast cancer patients who develop metastases. Currently the treatment of choice is radiotherapy. Only in specific cases surgery is indicated with subsequent radiotherapy. There are several ongoing clinical studies to assess the efficacy of chemotherapy, but currently, there is no indication for giving chemotherapy as exclusive.

In any case, survival in these patients is between two and sixteen months.

Radiotherapy preclinical model
Hitherto radiotherapy mice models for tumors involved irradiating the entire animal body. The study coordinator, Angels Sierra explained that “this model greatly limited the survival of mice and, moreover, did not correspond to the treatment used in humans.”

Researchers have devised a model that accurately, can radiate the mouse brain into the area of the brain affected by metastasis, the most similar as possible to what is done in patients with breast cancer who develop brain metastasis.

“This new model,” said Sierra, “will allow us to test combinations of experimental chemoradiation and see if they are candidates to be tested in patients in a clinical trial.” IDIBELL researchers have tested a combination of radiotherapy and chemotherapy in which control mice receiving no treatment and those receiving radiotherapy alone had similar survival, whereas those who received the combination of radiotherapy and chemotherapy drug multiplied by four their survival. As explained by the first author of the article, Antonio Martinez-Aranda, one of the benefits of this new model is its reproducibility, ie “that other research groups can use this preclinical model to test various combinations of drugs to treat different types of metastasis. ”

Article’s reference
Martínez-Aranda A., Hernández V., Picón C., Modolell I. And Sierra A. Development of a preclinical therapuetic model of human brain metastasis with chemoradiotherapy. Int. J. Mol. Sci. 2013, 14(4), 8306-8327; doi:10.3390/ijms14048306