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Faculty of Science & Health
Professor John Crown
Prof John Crown is Chair of Translational Research at DCU.

DCU led paper marks culmination of largest investigator led clinical breast cancer trial in Ireland

Prof John Crown
A new paper, published in Acta Oncologica, represents the culmination of a series of outputs stemming from an all island 88 patient clinical trial involving eight different hospitals beginning in 2010. Led by Prof John Crown, the trial focused on the novel combination of two anti-cancer drugs used to treat the fast growing HER-2 positive breast cancer subtype.

Over the last fifteen years, the trial has yielded a series of publications, but also holds wider significance as an investigator-led trial which allows for researchers to access and analyse the resulting data. In contrast the samples from industry-led trials, which are far more common, are not generally available.

The project focused on the lab-based observation that Trastuzumab, a monoclonal antibody used to treat HER2, could work in tandem with another anti-HER2 drug: Lapatinib. In an innovative instance of translational research, the project developed research questions that would be relevant to clinical treatment having drawn on information from patient care.

 

Shows Denis Collins and Alexander Eustace
Dr Denis Collins and Dr Alex Eustace played key roles in the project.

The project focused on the lab-based observation that Trastuzumab, a monoclonal antibody used to treat HER2, could work in tandem with another anti-HER2 drug: Lapatinib. In an innovative instance of translational research, the project developed research questions that would be relevant to clinical treatment having drawn on information from patient care.

When given to patients with early but high-risk cancer, the new combination of the drugs produced their respective expected beneficial effects. However, in combination they also offered additional novel effects.

While the new combination of drugs did not deliver an increase in pathological complete response, where drugs kill off the disease ahead of surgery, it did find that combining the drugs worked in practice. Furthermore, the addition of Lapatinib was linked to a lower chance of cancer returning.

The trial, conducted between 2010 and 2012 with follow up in 2018, was also one of the first in the world to offer this combination of drugs to patients. It also represented an instance of administering drugs to patients before resorting to surgery, a reverse of the then more common approach.

Prof John Crown has been Chair of Translational Research since 2001. Over time the university has built a unit committed to a translational research approach grounded in observing and feeding into clinical treatment in designing trials.

The wider team behind the trial and subsequent data analysis included current and former DCU researchers Dr Alex Eustace, Dr Denis Collins, Dr Neil Conlon, Prof Martin Clynes, Dr Naomi Walsh, Dr Norma O’Donovan, and Dr Alexandra Canonici.

Funding for the project came from The Caroline Foundation, named for Caroline Dwyer Hickey who died of breast cancer aged 35 in 2013. Caroline was a patient of Prof Crown from the time of her being diagnosed with breast cancer in June 2004.