New type of bowel cancer discovered by Cancer Research UK

A new type of bowel cancer has been discovered by Cancer Research UK.

Researchers from the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute at the University of Cambridge assessed tumours from 90 separate patients with stage II colon cancer, finding that they could group the samples into three sub-types.

The experts developed a panel of 145 genes to distinguish the sub-types and analysed another 1,100 patients with the condition.

Two of the sub-types were already known about, though a new kind of cancer was detected in more than a quarter of the patients, with these patients seen as more likely to do worse than those with other types of bowel cancer.

As well as this, their tumours were more aggressive and resistant to the cetuxiab drug, which can be used to treat the condition.

Cetuximab works by targeting the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) molecule.

Experiments showed that the third group of bowel tumours are likely to develop in different ways from other types, which could explain their aggressive nature.

Dr Louis Vermeulen, lead researcher on the study, said: "We identified a new sub-type of bowel cancer by studying how the genes in tumours behaved. This allowed us to develop a quick and easy test to identify this sub-type, which has a poor prognosis and responds poorly to anti-EGFR therapy – a recognised treatment for many bowel cancers.

"When we further examined what properties described the three sub-types we found that this third sub-type was already primed to spread from an early stage, something that was previously only thought to occur much later in tumour development."

Mr Vermeulen explained that the differences between the sub-types may arise from the cell of origin for the tumour instead of a specific mutation.

Kate Law, Cancer Research UK's director of clinical research, noted that the study reminds people of the importance of looking at how particular genes behave.