On the battlefield against cancer, research does not lack inventiveness and perseverance. This time, it’s happening in Mulhouse (Haut-Rhin),Hematology and Transplantation Research Institute of Mulhouse (IRHT). The latter is working to develop a “simple” technique that makes it possible to identify what type of brain cancer we are dealing with, to diagnose it quickly and in a less invasive way.
Called “DiaBioLiq” (Diagnosis by liquid biopsy), their project of 1.8 million euros over three years, which notably required the essential purchase of a new high-throughput sequencer to establish a database, seeks to develop a diagnostic kit that can be used by hospitals and their healthcare professionals.
An aggressive cancer
Targeted research which takes on its full importance when we know that brain cancers represent 1 to 1.5% of new cancers diagnosed each year in France (Source Inca), or 5,000 to 6,000 people (55% of whom are men). And it is no more reassuring to know that it is an aggressive cancer, the survival rate for this pathology being currently only 30% while it is twice as high for other cancers. .
What are we talking about?
Around 5% of brain cancers are lymphomas, which the IRHT knows well. These cerebral lymphomas are particularly virulent and it is essential to diagnose and treat them very quickly. With this new project, IRHT researchers aim to diagnose these cancers, including lymphomas.
Currently, when there is a suspicion of brain cancer, it is necessary to take a tissue sample, to simplify, to make a hole in the head under scanner or ultrasound. The tissue is then analyzed to determine whether or not the sample is cancerous as well as the type of cancer present (lymphoma, astrocytoma, glioblastoma, etc.). Problem is, in addition to being invasive, this approach is impossible in certain cases of tumors that are too small or poorly placed (removing them would be too great a risk for the patient).
With this new research, it should therefore be possible in the next few years to determine precisely the type of cancer in question by “simply” starting from a sample of CSF (cerebrospinal fluid in which the brain and spinal cord are bathed). spinal cord), collected by lumbar puncture. The sample taken then makes it possible to determine the organization of the patient’s DNA around certain genes using PCRs (like those carried out for Covid). around certain genes, and provide a very rapid and less invasive diagnosis.
A little extra thing that makes all the difference
What makes the IRHT approach original, even if other teams are working on it abroad, particularly in Germany, is “not being interested in genetic mutations, but looking at how DNA is organized,” underlines Romain Barbet, researcher at IRHT and head of the DiaBioLiq project. What the IRHT project differs, and this is essential, “is not to look at the mutations, because they can be common in certain cancers, particularly brain cancers, but to see how the DNA is folded back on itself, how it is curved, very tight or very relaxed, simplifies the researcher. Depending on this, we will be able to determine which cells it comes from, and therefore, what cancer it is without having to use genetic mutations” which can in certain cases seem unrevealing.
Our file on cancers
But we will have to wait a little longer before we can benefit from this new scientific advance. “Within five years, diagnostic kits should be sufficiently developed,” estimates researcher Romain Barbet, “so that hospitals and their doctors can quickly diagnose this disease. »