The results of the research, which analyzed samples from 189 women a median of 11 years after diagnosis, show that having received chemotherapy was not significantly associated with a higher frequency of clonal hematopoiesis of indeterminate potential (CHIP) among the studied breast cancer survivors.
The work, published in the scientific journal The Breast, was developed by professionals from the Clinical and Translational Cancer Research group of IBIMA and the Medical Oncology Service of the Hospital Universitario Virgen de la Victoria, with the participation of the Biomedical Research Network Center for Cancer (CIBERONC), the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Málaga, the Molecular Biology Laboratory of Cancer of the Center for Biomedical Research-Sanitary Research (CIMES), and the Hospital Universitario Clínico San Cecilio of Granada.
Clonal hematopoiesis of indeterminate potential (CHIP) occurs when a group of blood cells acquires mutations and begins to multiply. Its presence does not mean the person has leukemia or another hematological disease, but it can be related to an increased risk of cardiovascular problems or blood diseases.
The team analyzed blood samples from 189 women diagnosed with breast cancer in early or locally advanced stages, collected a median of 11 years after diagnosis. Of these, 103 had received chemotherapy and 86 had not. Using advanced genetic analysis techniques, researchers studied a set of 100 genes related to these alterations and other broader regions of the DNA.
28.6% of participants showed some alteration in the group of 100 genes analyzed, a figure that reached 35.4% when the study was expanded. However, no significant differences were found between women who had received chemotherapy and those who had not. Furthermore, alterations most related to damage from certain treatments were very infrequent more than ten years after diagnosis.
According to its authors, this is the first study to analyze these alterations in breast cancer survivors over such a long term using such a broad genetic study. The results indicate that, in this patient group, chemotherapy was not related to a higher presence of clonal alterations in the blood more than a decade after treatment. However, the study does not reveal what happens in the first few years after chemotherapy nor does it rule out that some patients may develop specific changes.
The researchers emphasize that "some alterations could appear during or shortly after treatment and decrease over time. Therefore, new studies with samples collected at different times will be necessary to better understand their evolution from diagnosis to long-term survival."
