Shanghai medical professionals have discovered that the novel immunotherapy that causes the death of cancerous cells is effective in treating the most challenging type of breast cancer.

They also pointed out that the subtype responds most actively to the therapy, thus opening up potential new treatment possibilities.

Ferroptosis is a new form of controlled cell death. It is characterized by significant lipid peroxidation, which can be suppressed by iron chelators or lipophilic antioxidants.

Triple-negative breast cancer is the most complex with a 20 percent chance of relapsing, according to doctors at the Shanghai Cancer Center.

Breast cancer that is triple-negative does not express the genes for HER2, progesterone receptors, or estrogen receptors. Therefore, chemotherapy is the only treatment option.

Triple-negative breast cancer affects between 15 and 20 percent of patients.

"The five-year disease-free survival rate for patients with triple-negative breast cancer has stayed at 80 percent for a very long time," according to Dr Shao Zhimin, a top authority on the subject and director of the Shanghai Cancer Center.

"Doctors have tried numerous methods and medications but failed to increase the survival rates. So, our team is exploring newer ways through metabolism-and-immunity therapy."

Shao's team genetically categorized each subtype of triple-negative breast cancer before experimenting with various immunotherapies. They started with ferroptosis.

"We chose to test ferroptosis on triple-negative breast cancer since it is a type of regulated cell death closely related to metabolism and popular in the field of oncology," Shao said.

Doctors discovered that the subtype of LAR is highly sensitive to ferroptosis and identified the mechanism that is crucial.

"Ferroptosis and immunotherapy together can provide a new solution for patients with the LAR subtype of triple-negative breast cancer," he said.

"We conducted animal experiments and retrospective clinical analysis to confirm our discovery," he said.

The discovery was published by the prestigious Cell Metabolism journal.