On the pulse


Cancerkin’s news…


Hyde Park Walk update...

We are still taking entries for the Hyde Park Walk on Sunday 19th June so if you have not yet registered for the walk, there is still time to do so – just send in your registration form as soon as you can. To download an entry form, please visit our website, or you can request for a form to be sent to you in the post.

If you have already registered and you are thinking about setting up an online Justgiving page, now is the time to do so! Justgiving is a quick and easy way to collect sponsorship and takes just a few moments to set up. Click here to go to their website and here to read some tips on how to make the most of your page.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at anytime on l.smith@cancerkin.org.uk.



News from East London...

This week eight wonderful volunteers from East London began their training to become ‘Experienced Patients’. Cancerkin’s existing team of Experienced Patients are trained volunteers who have been through breast cancer themselves and now offer one-to-one support to patients and their families. Cancerkin has been offering this hand-holding service at the Royal Free since the charity was founded in 1987 and we are now making exciting progress in establishing a similar network in East London. All those who attended on Tuesday at St Joseph’s Hospice in Hackney found the session very interesting and enjoyable. We wish them all the best of luck as they progress in their training.

Today we returned to St Joseph’s as part of Cancerkin’s continuing programme of complementary therapy sessions in the area. Over 30 women attended, benefiting from a range of Cancerkin’s individual and group therapies. On 13 May, we held a further session at new East London venue the Bromley by Bow centre. Nearly 20 women participated in the session and breast awareness talks were held throughout the day for those visiting the centre. Feedback continues to be overwhelmingly positive from sessions at both venues. We would like to thank the wonderful staff at both the Bromley by Bow Centre and St Joseph’s Hospice for their continued support and help in making the sessions a success.


Waitrose’s community matters scheme...

We are pleased to announce that Cancerkin has been selected as one of three charities to take part in the Waitrose ‘Community Matters’ giving initiative at their John Barnes Store on Finchley Road throughout June. Using tokens provided at the till, customers decide how much of a £1,000 total is given to three different charities which have been nominated by their own customers. If you happen to be in the store during June, please put your token in the Cancerkin box!


In the news…


New research into drug resistance in breast cancer…

Tamoxifen is one of the most widely prescribed drugs used to treat women whose breast tumours require the hormone oestrogen to grow. Drugs like Tamoxifen work by blocking oestrogen, but over time cancers can become resistant to this kind of treatment. Research published this week in the Nature Medicine journal had identified a protein found in breast cancer cells that may play a part in the development of this drug resistance. Although research is in its early stage, the protein could provide an important target for the development of new therapies.

A team of scientists at the Imperial College London undertook a series of tests into the protein known as LMTK3. They found that LMTK3 can help to ‘switch on’ response to oestrogen in tamoxifen resistant cells, making the drug less effective. By blocking LMTK3, this response was ‘switched off’, making cells more sensitive to the treatment. Using an experimental genetic technique on mice carrying tamoxifen-resistant breast tumours, researchers were able to block LMTK3 and successfully shrink the tumours. The team also examined different levels of LMTK3 found in samples of breast cancer tissue. They found that women with higher levels of LMTK3 in their cancer cells generally had a shorter life expectancy and were less likely to benefit from hormone therapy. They also found links between faults in the gene for the protein and how long an individual survived.

Senior author Professor Justin Stebbing, from Imperial College London's Department of Surgery and Cancer, said of the research: "Anti-oestrogen drugs have been very successful at allowing women with breast cancer to live longer, but resistance to these drugs is a common problem. Our results suggest that the action of LMTK3 on the oestrogen receptor has a crucial role in the development of drug resistance. We're now looking for drugs that can block the effect of LMTK3, which we could hopefully give to patients to prevent them from becoming resistant to hormone therapy. It will probably take at least five to ten years to develop new treatments that are safe to be used in humans."

To read the article in full, please click here.


Laura Smith 28th May 2011
l.smith@cancerkin.org.uk