Researchers at Burjeel Cancer Institute (BCI) in Abu Dhabi,UAE have achieved a breakthrough in the field by becoming the first in the world to use Camizestrant – a novel breast cancer treatment – in a real-world clinical environment. The treatment is being used for a forty-year-old woman who was diagnosed with hormone receptor-positive breast cancer, HER2-negative, which progressed to advance stage months before signs of resistance were detected in conventional scans, thanks to a blood test five months earlier.
The result came under the supervision and care of the Department of Health – Abu Dhabi (DoH) as the emirate continues to demonstrate a leading role in precision medicine and complex cancer treatment. Doctors took advantage of the circulating tumour DNA (ctDNA) test to detect an ESR1 gene mutation, which could enable cancerous cells to grow even if they are treated with hormone therapy. Doctors said that, at diagnosis, fewer than 5 percent of patients have ESR1 mutations, but that they can arise in almost 40 percent during treatment with hormone-blocking medications.
The real story of the case is that the mutation was found before the person started to develop symptoms and scans showed that the cancer had been getting worse. These mutations can sometimes be acquired through blood testing around six months prior to the disease manifesting itself in the imaging tests, researchers say.
Because this condition was detected early, the physician was able to switch the patient to an investigational oral medication developed to target both normal and mutated estrogen receptors called Camizestrant. The patient is clinically stable and under the close supervision of a multidisciplinary team at the oncology department of Burjeel Cancer Institute, said the hospital. “The achievement is showcasing the future of healthcare where clinicians could detect changes in the disease earlier and take action before it escalates,” said Dr Noura Al Ghaithi, Undersecretary of the Department of Health – Abu Dhabi.
Burjeel Cancer Institute (BCI) CEO Prof. Humaid Al Shamsi referred to the development as an introduction to a new medicine. He added that monitoring molecules continuously serves to reveal the potential of treatment resistance early, and to tailor treatment according to each patient’s biological profile of his/her cancer. The treatment strategy is backed by data from the international clinical SERENA-6 study. Switching eligible patients to Camizestrant resulted in a 56 percent lower risk of disease spread or death from standard hormone therapy, the results indicated.
Investigators also found that the patient didn’t need to undergo treatment for a median of 16 months after switching to Camizestrant, versus 9.2 months for patients not switched to the drug. Experts in the healthcare industry believe that achieving this mark would also help improve access to advanced cancer treatment outside the UAE, thereby lessening travel requirements for specialized treatments.
