Personalised Cancer Treatment Hope After Study

Scientists have built up the most complete picture yet of genetic changes that cause breast cancer - providing "crucial" opportunities for new treatments.

A study involving the complete genetic codes of 560 people from around the world found 93 genes - including five new ones - associated with the disease.

The results, published in Nature and Nature Communications, provide evidence that breast cancer genomes are "highly individual", researchers from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute said.

The team looked at genomes in patients - including four men - and focused on mutations that encourage the disease to grow and the patterns - known as mutational signatures - in each tumour.

They found that women with genes that leave them at a higher risk of developing breast and ovarian cancer, have entire genome profiles that are very different to each other and distinctive from other breast cancers.

Dr Serena Nik-Zainal, who led the team of researchers, said: "In the future, we'd like to be able to profile individual cancer genomes so that we can identify the treatment most likely to be successful for a woman or man diagnosed with breast cancer.

"It is a step closer to personalised healthcare for cancer."

Professor Sir Mike Stratton, director of the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, said the discovery of gene mutations was "crucial" to understanding the causes of cancer.

Lawrence Young, pro-vice chancellor at Warwick Medical School and professor of cancer research, said he believed the discovery was a milestone moment in the fight against breast cancer.

He told Sky News: "For the first time we have a comprehensive understanding of all the changes that occur that make normal breast tissue become cancer.

"It is a product of all the technology and understanding that's gone into reading the genome...and will help us to think of new ways of diagnosing and treating the disease.

"We should be able to find ways to intervene and prevent the disease - and that's very exciting.

"But probably more exciting and more immediate is our ability to use this information in individual breast cancer patients to better diagnose the disease and find the optimum treatment so that in that particular individual, the treatment is 100% effective."