COME by the Italian research new hope for patients with colorectal cancer which opens up the possibility of a care chemo-free thanks to the inhibitors of the enzyme Parp, the protein ‘workshop’ that can repair the Dna of cancer cells damaged by chemotherapy, “forcing’ in motion”, encouraging the growth and development. The news comes from a study just published in Clinical Cancer Research by researchers at the Istituto di Candiolo-Irccs and the University of Turin. The protein that ‘repair’ the Dna of the tumors The tumor of the colon-rectum, only in 2018, recorded in Italy more than 50-thousand new diagnoses, occupying the second place among the five neoplasms more frequent. The current researches are on inhibitors of the enzyme Parp, the protein that repairs the Dna of the cancer cells, already approved for cancers of the ovary and for the first time studied and also used for cancer of the colon and rectum. The experimentation of the Istituto di Candiolo-Irccs and the university of Torino opens the way to clinical trials to test new drugs to prevent chemotherapy in more advanced forms of colorectal cancer after chemotherapeutic treatment with oxaliplatin, thereby promoting the chronicity of the disease. A possible maintenance treatment, The researchers of the Department of Oncology of the University of Turin, working at the Institute of Candiolo have observed that inhibitors of Parp to a halt in the growth of a subgroup of colorectal cancers. In addition, they found that the cancer cells bowel affected by inhibitors of Parp, while having the molecular characteristics different, they are united by sensitivity to chemotherapy with oxaliplatin. This means that these drugs could be tested as a maintenance therapy for those patients suffering from carcinoma of the colon and rectum that have previously responded well and long to oxaliplatin-based chemotherapy. The role of Parp-inhibitors to chemotherapy based on oxaliplatin– states Sabrina Arena of the Department of Oncology of the University of Turin – damages the Dna of the cells of the tumors, and often fails to block the growth of more advanced forms of colorectal cancer. However, patients should discontinue the treatment cycles for the high toxicity, even when the therapy is still effective. For this, we need to find new drugs to control the disease at the end of cycles of chemotherapy”. And it is here that come into play Parp-inhibitors that prevent this protein is the ‘workshop’ of repairing the breakage of the Dna derived from the chemotherapy, and then to replicate its Dna, to grow and develop. “We are only at the beginning of a long and complex path –precise Arena. At the moment we are studying the entire genome to identify which molecular features of the cancer allow to select patients that will benefit from this type of therapy.” The tests on the organoidi To arrive at this discovery, the researchers used a new strategy which uses the so-called organoidi: “it Is in vitro cultures of tissues of the patients that allow us to quickly test new drugs and to customize therapies,” explains Alberto Bardelli , professor of the Department of Oncology of the University of Turin at the Istituto di Candiolo-Irccs. “The team of molecular biologists, doctors, engineers, mathematicians and bioinformaticians who participated in this study is already back at work to analyze other innovative drugs able to inhibit the proteins involved in repair of Dna damage and in cell cycle control. The next step will be to transfer the observations made in the laboratory into a clinical trial that put at the disposal of patients with colorectal cancer these anti-cancer agents”, concludes the expert. The numbers of the colon-rectum in italy in Italy is among the five neoplasms most frequently diagnosed and is in second place, accounting for 14% of the total in 2018 were to 28,800 new cases in men and 22,500 women. The age group mainly affected is between 60 and 75 years, even if in other european countries and in the USA you are documenting the increase of diagnosis in the population under 50 years of age. The geographical distribution of the disease is very uneven: with respect to the regions of the North, in the regions of the Centre and the highest incidence is 7% (in both men and women), while decreases in the south (-6% men, 5% of women). Currently in Italy there are approximately 481.000 people with a previous diagnosis of colorectal cancer (16% men and 12% women). Cancer of the colon and rectum is the second leading cause of cancer death both in men (11%) and women (12%).
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