Thursday 8 August 2013

Li Fraumeni Syndrome - A New Hypothesis

In the last year or so I have been working on developing some new ideas on cancer development in Li Fraumeni Syndrome. The results so far are a paper in a peer-reviewed oncology journal (Cancer Cell International), and a follow up article (aimed at clinicians rather than researchers) in Oncology News. Both of these are open access publications:

My paper is available here: http://www.cancerci.com/content/13/1/35

And the less technical version is here:: http://www.oncologynews.biz/pdf/20%20ONJA13/88_JA13_Li%20Fraumeni%20Syndrome.pdf

But this isn't the end of the story - I am continuing to develop these ideas and follow up on the clinical implications.

2 comments:

  1. Congratulations Pan on this paper!

    It's really great to see new ideas being advanced on LFS, especially when these ideas may lead to something that can help reduce cancer risk for LFS carriers. Can you say anything more about what you see as the next steps with this work?

    Also, do you think this theory, if validated, could provide clues to more effective treatment regimes for LFS carriers with cancer? I'm thinking particularly of potential benefits from taking Metformin in combination with standard chemotherapy regimes.

    Paul.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Paul. Well one thing that does come out of the nw theory is that we can reduce the incidence of cancer in LFS using specific drugs. This is something that I'm focusing on in additional research, and more importantly in trying to put together a clinical trial. I put together a proposal for a trial of metformin for cancer prevention in LFS, got agreement with a clinical centre in the UK to run the trial (itself a significant step), but our application for funding failed. But that's where this research leads - LFS should not automatically equate to cancer if my theory is correct.

    ReplyDelete