By Mia De Graaf Health Editor For Dailymail.com
Published: 16:34 GMT, 14 March 2019 | Updated: 18:39 GMT, 14 March 2019
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Scientists have discovered how to predict which breast cancer patients will suffer heart problems from chemotherapy - and how to prevent these side effects.
Around 15 percent of patients who take trastuzumab, used for a fifth of breast cancer cases, suffer heart issues, slowing their heart rate and sometimes leading to heart failure.
And yet, there are currently no methods to mitigate the debilitating and life-threatening reaction, short of quitting the drug.
Now researchers at the Stanford Cardiovascular Institute have found they can apply the drug to blood samples from patients first to see whether they are likely to suffer a reaction.
They also found that metformin, a drug already approved to treat diabetes, rejuvenated heart cells.
Fifteen percent of people with aggressive HER2-positive tumors (around 9,000 US women a year) suffer side effects from their chemo. A Stanford study found a way to predict and mitigate that
'We could use this
