Test for the determination of the response to the treatment with 5-FU of patients with colon or breast cancer
Universidad de Granada, CSIC and the Servicio Andaluz de Salud have identified the RNA-dependent protein-kinase PKR as a marker to asses the response to the treatment of cancer with 5-Fluorouracil (5-FU).Identification of mutations in PKR, changes in its activity, or insufficient expression, allows predicting the response to 5-FU alone or combined with other drugs or cytokines, particularly in patients with colon and breast cancer.
Advantages
Other previous studies have tried to analyse the relation between the status of various enzymes involved in the DNA replication, as the thymidylate synthetase (TS), the dihydropyrimidine dehydrogenase (DPD), or the thymidine phosphorylase (TF), with the response to 5-FU.In most of the cases, the conclusion is no clear, and it has been proposed to analyse different markers to predict correctly the response to the chemotherapy.
In other hand, other studies have analysed the tumor suppressor protein p53 as a marker. However, it is known that more than 50% of the tumors have mutations or lack p53, which has an essential role in the apoptosis and in the control of the cell cycle. In these patients , it has been demonstrated that the presence of a functional PKR has a key role, as it is the only known alternative to p53 to be able to induce the cell death. Therefore, it is essential in these cases to determine the status of PKR in order to predict the effectiveness of 5-FU.
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