Recurrence is the fear that lingers long after breast cancer treatment ends, often longer than memories of the treatment itself. Breast cancer remains the most commonly diagnosed cancer among American women after skin cancer, and for all the progress made in treating it, that fear hasn’t gone away.
A new body of research, funded by the Beljanski Foundation and led by Qi Chen, PhD, at the University of Kansas Medical Center, is trying to address it at the cellular level, by targeting the specific cells thought to be responsible for cancer coming back. “Not all the cancer cells in a tumor bulk are the same,” Chen explains. Cancer stem cells are a small subset capable of both reproducing themselves and generating new tumor cells. “You can think of them as the ‘seeds’ of a tumor,” she says. “They are often more resistant to chemotherapy and other treatments than the bulk of cancer cells. If they survive treatment, they can potentially regenerate the tumor.”
The Beljanski Foundation, having already funded published studies on the botanicals pao pereira and Rauwolfia vomitoria in ovarian and pancreatic cancer stem cells, turned to breast cancer next. Chen’s team tested those two extracts alongside a specific green tea extract and a Ginkgo biloba golden leaf extract, individually and in combination. The most striking result came from a mouse model of triple-negative breast cancer: about 30 percent of untreated mice developed metastatic lesions, while none of the treated mice did.
It’s a number that invites more excitement than the research, at this stage, can support. The mice used had compromised immune systems, necessary for the human cancer cells to take hold and form testable tumors, and the tumors were inoculated rather than naturally occurring. “This is encouraging, but the results need to be further validated,” Chen says. “Carefully designed clinical trials would be required to determine whether a similar benefit occurs in people.” The findings are now written up in a manuscript, which has been submitted to what Chen describes as a high-impact scientific journal and is currently under review. Peer-review timelines vary widely, she notes, making it hard to predict when a decision might come.
According to Chen’s data, some of the botanicals may kill cancer stem cells outright, others may push them to “grow up,” as she puts it, differentiating into more mature cells that respond better to conventional treatment, and still others may work by changing the tumor’s microenvironment or modulating the body’s broader response. “If we can encourage them to differentiate, they may become easier to eliminate,” she says.
Asked what tends to get lost when research like this moves from a lab paper into public conversation, Chen says: “The most important distinction is that promising laboratory results are not the same as proving that something treats cancer in people. Our results provide evidence that these botanical formulations can affect breast cancer stem cells in experimental models, but they should not be interpreted as evidence that taking these botanicals or supplements will prevent or treat breast cancer in patients.” Sylvie Beljanski, founder and president of the Beljanski Foundation, makes a similar point from the philanthropic side, framing it as a question of what integrative medicine is for: “Not as a replacement for surgery, chemotherapy, radiation, hormonal or targeted therapies, but in rigorously investigating complementary approaches that might address unanswered questions. We owe patients both hope and scientific rigor.”
The breast cancer study was already fully funded by the time the foundation held its Hamptons Sweat Fest fundraiser this past summer; the event instead built support for the next chapter, prostate cancer stem cells, following a progression that has already carried this work from ovarian to pancreatic to breast cancer. “We have the scientific question,” Beljanski says. “We have the foundation of previous research. Now we need to fund the study that can provide the answer.” beljanski.org
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