Chemotherapy resistance of breast cancer patients could be predicted in the future after researchers discovered the biomarker family.

Researchers from the University of Hull, have identified a family of proteins which are twice as prevalent in clinical samples from patients who were resistant to chemotherapy.

These developments are significant because chemotherapy works better for some cancer sufferers than others. Therefore, it is important to identify those who may not respond well to the treatment in order to diagnose more suitable treatments quickly, avoiding the side effects of both chemo and the delay.

The research has been published in the Journal of Proteomics, and documents a number of potential biomarkers associated with resistance to common chemotherapy drugs, including epirubicin and docetaxel.

Lead researcher Dr Lynn Cawkwell, says: "A major goal in cancer research is to be able to predict the response of a patient to chemotherapy. Unfortunately, a reliable test has not yet been developed to achieve this. We hope our work can help to bring us a step closer."