A breakthrough test can successfully predict whether chemotherapy will work so patients can avoid needless side effects.
The test, developed by the University of Cambridge, looks at the structure of tumour DNA and forecasts whether it will resist treatment.
It was piloted using data from 840 patients with different types of cancer and found that it could help spot whether treatment was likely to fail for ovarian, prostate and breast cancers.
James Brenton, a professor of ovarian cancer medicine at the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute, said: “Sadly, there are too many cases where cancer is resistant to chemotherapy treatment – meaning unpleasant side effects for the patient with limited benefit to them.
“Chemotherapy is a mainstay of cancer treatment and saves many lives. Yet in many cases, it has been administered the same way for over 40 years. By understanding who is most likely to respond to it, chemotherapy could become a more tailored treatment across different types of cancer.”
The test can accurately predict resistance to treatment of three common types of chemotherapy – platinum-based, anthracycline and taxane chemotherapy – which are given to nearly 100,000 patients in Britain each year.
Although such treatments can help keep cancer at bay, they are also toxic to healthy cells and can lead to unpleasant side-effects such as fatigue, a weakened immune system, nausea and hair loss.