Biomarker For Persistent Fatigue From Breast Cancer

Wouldn't it be nice to know in advance if you would develop long-term persistent fatigue from chemotherapy for breast cancer, so that an informed decision can be made previous to taking chemotherapy? Thanks to the finding of some of the scientists this may be possible in future.

Dr. Michael Irwin of the University of California, Los Angeles' Semel Institute and his colleagues have discovered a biological marker to identify breast cancer survivors at risk for long-term persistent fatigue. It is estimated that about one third of breast cancer survivors experience disabling fatigue that lasts for years.

Breast cancer survivors who suffer from persistent, disabling fatigue may have immune systems that don't shut down following therapy. Dr. Irwin says that this newly discovered biomarker could identify and predict which women would develop long-term persistent fatigue. Currently we have no available therapy for cancer related fatigue. Dr. Irwin hopes that this finding will lead to development of drugs that would one day be used to treat persistent fatigue among breast cancer survivors.

The study included blood samples from 32 breast cancer survivors with persistent fatigue and this was compared to blood samples from 18 breast cancer survivors who did not suffer from fatigue.

The scientists focused on the measurement of a particular protein involved in the body's inflammatory response that indicates the immune system is overactive. Irwin's team found that the pro-inflammatory protein levels were significantly higher in breast cancer survivors who had persistent fatigue.

Also they found that immune cells of breast cancer survivors with persistent fatigue produced more cytokines in laboratory analyses than the cells from survivors without fatigue. Cytokines are a group of proteins produced by the body's immune system in response to a threat to the body. Of.

The research findings are published in the May 1 issue of Clinical Cancer Research.