Share:
This test can show if women get breast cancer in the next 10 years
Researchers have now developed a test that can tell women if they are at high risk for breast cancer recurrence within the next 10 years. Such a test could help to better assess the risk of cancer in individual patients and thus provide them with medical monitoring or preventive treatment.
The scientists from the Institute of Cancer Research, London found in their study that a newly developed test can effectively predict a recurrent disease of breast cancer. The doctors published a press release on the results of their study.
Researchers developed a test that can determine the risk in women of recurrence of breast cancer. (Image: WavebreakMediaMicro / fotolia.com) Researchers analyze tissue samples from nearly 1,200 women
In their study, the experts looked for so-called immune cell hotspots in and around the tumors. They found that women with a high number of such hotspots are more likely to relapse due to their breast cancer. For the study, the researchers analyzed the tissue samples from a total of 1,178 women with the most common form of breast cancer - estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer.
Existing immune cell hotspots led to an increased risk
With the help of a newly developed computer tool, the samples collected as part of a clinical study from the Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust and other hospitals in the UK were evaluated. The experts found that women with immune cell hotspots had an increased likelihood of 25 percent that their breast cancer would return within 10 years of initiating treatment. The risk of the cancer returning within five years was 23 percent higher in women with immune cell hotspots.
Test helps with decisions about the right course of treatment
Once the new test is validated, it can be used to predict the risk of cancer recurrence and help make decisions about the right course of treatment, the researchers explain. A better understanding of the immune system in breast cancer could in the future help to understand why certain immunotherapies work in some patients but remain ineffective in others. Thus, new therapeutic targets for immunotherapy could be determined, the researchers say.
Further research is needed
The new automated computer tool allows for the assessment of the risk of relapse based on spatially organized cells. Thus, it can also be determined whether the immune cells are summarized in the tumor or not, explain the experts. More and larger studies are now required before an immune hotspot test comes to the clinics.
Test shows patterns that can not be detected under the microscope
The samples used in our study are already part of clinical practice. This means that implementing an immune hotspot test would be relatively easy and inexpensive, scientists say. There are already a number of molecular tests used in the treatment of women with early stage breast cancer, but none of them has focused on the immune aspects of the disease. The new computer-based test automatically analyzes breast cancer specimens and displays patterns that are invisible to the human eye under a microscope. In the future, the test may allow us to identify those patients who have a higher risk of relapsing after hormone therapy and thus change the treatment of those affected.
The immune system plays a key role in breast cancer hormone treatments?
The immune system probably plays a key role in how breast cancer responds to hormone treatment, the researchers explain. The measurement of the immune response to cancer could be important in the future to identify patients benefiting from immunotherapy. (As)