A publication in the Journal of Clinical Oncology says that the expression of HER3 is associated with a significantly worse survival in patients with ovarian cancer. HER3 is a component of the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR). The EGFR pathway is a biologic pathway within cells that is involved in cell growth and replication.
Ovarian cancer is considered to be a deadly cancer because a majority of patients are not diagnosed until they reach the later stages. Once the cancer has metastasized it is much harder to treat. To allow treatment to be more individualized the researchers wanted to know if HER3 expression can detect a more aggressive cancer.
This information can lead to patients pursuing more aggressive treatments or participation in a clinical trial evaluating new therapeutic approaches.
Even though its always promising to find out new information, I would be much more excited to hear that there are better detection methods for ovarian cancer in the early stages. They might find a way to block the expression of HER3 but as in breast cancer with HER2 over expression and Herceptin it never seems to pan out to be the miracle cure we are hoping for.
Its better to nip that cancer in the bud!
1. Even though ovarian cancer accounts for only 4% of all cancers among women, it ranks as the fifth cause of death from it. One of the most promising new approaches that may deal with early detection of ovarian cancer is called proteomics (protein expression analysis), the study of proteins in the cells, tissues and body fluids.
Even before a tumor can be felt, some researchers have found, the tumor begins secreting a distinctive pattern, or fingerprint, of proteins. Here, you go beyond genes (DNA, the genomic analysis or structure of the human genome) and beyond gene expression (the measure of RNA content, like Her2/neu in breast cancer) to measure the actual proteins themselves.
However, there is an inverse hierachy between relevance and ease of measurement. Genomic analysis is only important insofar as it influences gene expression, which is only important insofar as it influences protein expression (proteonomics). Genomic analysis is the easiest to measure, followed by gene expression, and protein expression. So, the most relevant things are the hardest to do, or at least the hardest to do "right."
Cancer is a complex disease and needs to be attacked on many fronts. The best thing to do is to combine these and other different tests (protein function, cell function and disease analysis) in ways which make the most sense.
Posted at 1:42AM on Aug 17th 2006 by Gregory D. Pawelski