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15/12/2020 - Press release

The presence of COPD, a determining factor in lung cancer treatment

Researchers have discovered that the levels of DNA damage and the activity of the PARP enzyme, responsible for cell repair, increase in people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

DNA damage levels and the activity of the polymerase enzyme responsible for cell repair (PARP) increase in lung tumours in patients suffering chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), but not in people who do not have this pathology. This is reflected in work by researchers from the CIBER of Respiratory Diseases (CIBERES) and doctors and researchers from the Hospital del Mar Pneumology Service and the Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute research group on muscle wasting and cachexia in chronic respiratory diseases and lung cancer (IMIM-Hospital del Mar), published in the journal Cancers

This research is of enormous importance given that treating lung cancer with PARP enzyme inhibitors (already in clinical use for other tumours, such as breast and ovarian cancers) is preferentially indicated for patients with an underlying respiratory disease, while the response in people with no COPD is highly controversial.

Dr. Esther Barreiro. Source:IMIM.

According to Esther Barreiro, a CIBERES researcher, pneumologist at Hospital del Mar, IMIM researcher and author of the paper, "Our findings may go a long way towards explaining why PARP inhibitors in cases of lung cancer have still not shown conclusive results, as the presence or absence of a chronic respiratory disease in these patients has not been taken into account."

This study, carried out on a sample of 30 lung cancer patients at Hospital del Mar in Barcelona, half of whom were suffering COPD, assessed the expression and activity of PARP-1 and PARP-2, key enzymes in tumour processes, together with DNA damage. According to the results, a very high level of DNA damage and increased enzyme activity was observed in lung tumours of patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, but there was less expression in lung tumours where no COPD was present. Similarly, other phenotypic characteristics beyond cancer, such as airway obstruction, may explain the increased PARP activity observed in tumours of patients suffering underlying COPD.

Increased PARP Activity and DNA Damage in NSCLC Patients: The Influence of COPD

Jun Tang, Víctor Curull, Xuejie Wang, Coral Ampurdanés, Xavier Duran, Lara Pijuan, Alberto Rodríguez-Fuster, Rafael Aguiló, José Yélamos and Esther Barreiro. Cancers (Basel). 2020 Nov; 12(11): 3333. Published online 2020 Nov 11. doi: 10.3390/cancers12113333

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7697659/

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