Jefferson Scientists See Breast Cancer Gene Activity from Outside the BodyNovember 29, 2007Researchers at Jefferson Medical College and Jefferson's Kimmel Cancer in Philadelphia have used PET imaging to see hyperactive cancer genes inside breast tumors in laboratory animals, marking the first time such gene activity has been observed from outside the body. This technology might someday help physicians to detect and classify cancer, enabling them to find cancerous breast tumors as early as possible, and determine the appropriate treatment. Reporting in the Journal of Nuclear Medicine, scientists led by Eric Wickstrom, Ph.D., and Mathew Thakur, Ph.D., used a DNA "probe" - a modified nuclear medicine agent - to detect the hyperactivity of CCND1, a common breast cancer gene. The gene is copied thousands of times in most breast cancer cells. The high concentration makes CCND1 copies easier to image with the genetic PET probe. The research team found a much higher concentration of the cancer gene activity in estrogen receptor-positive breast tumors in mice than in normal tissue. "Less than one-fourth of lumps found in mammograms are really cancer," notes Dr. Wickstrom, professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University. "Our new technique will let us see what is really going on in a suspicious lump. We will see if a lump is malignant or something safe."
"Patients with benign lumps could avoid invasive procedures if active cancer genes could be identified from outside the body," says Dr. Thakur, professor of Radiology and Radiation Oncology at Jefferson Medical College. "Observing the cancer gene activity of a breast tumor will permit physicians to determine the best way to treat it." The new technique to visualize sites of cancer gene activity, which the investigators call radiohybridization imaging (RHI), might help physicians find out whether lesions found in mammograms are cancerous or non-cancerous without a biopsy. The genetic imaging agents are intended to find cancer gene activity as quickly as possible and guide the choice of therapy based on which genes are most active. The American Cancer Society estimates that approximately 40,000 women in this country will die from breast cancer in 2007. Yet, clinical examination and mammography can miss almost half of the breast cancers in women under 40, approximately one-quarter of cancers in women ages 40 to 49 and one-fifth of cancers in women over age 50. "When suspect lumps are discovered, biopsies are necessary to determine if the lumps are cancerous," Dr. Thakur points out. "However, more than three-fourths of the lumps are found to be benign. Mammography, an invaluable screening technique, sees shapes but not gene activity. Genetic PET scanning is a minimally invasive, sensitive and specific technique that might detect cancers with high efficiency in adult women and young women without breast compression." The researchers expect that RHI will be tested in clinical trials in suspected cases of breast cancer. Dr. Wickstrom, Dr. Thakur, and their co-workers have found that RHI works for detecting the activity of other cancer genes in other types of tumors as well. "Early detection saves lives," Dr. Thakur says. "Several other cancers show characteristic activated genes that we might be able to use for early diagnosis, such as pancreatic cancer, prostate cancer, lymphoma, and colon cancer." The investigators are also exploring genetic agents designed for magnetic resonance imaging and fluorescence imaging. These experiments were supported by grants from the Department of Energy and the National Cancer Institute. Thomas Jefferson University Hospital Science News and Science Current Events Tag Cloud This tag cloud is a visual representation of term frequencies of random science news topics with common terms grouped together and emphasized by their display size. Substance Abuse Climate models Quantum Computing Weight Loss Liver Cirrhosis Obese Cocaine Epstein-barr Virus Insecticide Vitamin C Food Poisoning Venus Gastric Bypass Surgery Chronic Myeloid Leukemia Parkinson Disease Antibiotics Apoptosis Cosmic Radiation Tooth Loss Mercury Emissions Flooding Reproduction Circumcision Aggressive Behavior Progesterone
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Related Breast Cancer Current Events and Breast Cancer News Articles Newly appreciated membrane estrogen receptor important therapeutic target for breast cancer New research at Rhode Island Hospital has uncovered the biological effects of a novel membrane estrogen receptor, a finding that has potential implications for hormonal therapy for breast cancer. Study shows PET can measure effectiveness of novel breast cancer treatment A new study published in the July issue of The Journal of Nuclear Medicine shows that positron emission tomography (PET) scans in mice can be used to determine whether a novel type of breast cancer treatment is working as intended. New MRI technique could mean fewer breast biopsies in high-risk women A University of Wisconsin-Madison biomedical engineer and colleagues have developed a method that, applied in MRI scans of the breast, could spare some women with increased breast cancer risk the pain and stress of having to endure a biopsy of a questionable lump or lesion. Researchers pinpoint a new enemy for tumor-suppressor p53 Researchers at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center have identified a protein that marks the tumor suppressor p53 for destruction, providing a potential new avenue for restoring p53 in cancer cells. What should a teenage girl do if she finds a lump in her breast? If a lump is found in the breast of an adolescent girl, she often will undergo an excisional biopsy. Study challenges routine use of MRI scans to evaluate breast cancer Reviewing the records of 577 breast cancer patients, Fox Chase Cancer Center researchers found that women with newly diagnosed breast cancer who receive a breast MRI are more likely to receive a mastectomy after their diagnosis and may face delays in starting treatment. A new take on growth factor signaling in tamoxifen resistance Differences in growth factor (GF) signaling may cause the poor prognosis in some breast cancer cases. A new study, published in the open access journal BMC Medical Genomics, suggests that some estrogen receptor-positive breast cancers respond poorly to tamoxifen because of increased GF signaling. Study finds cancer is the second most frequent cause of death in individuals with schizophrenia People with schizophrenia die from cancer four times as often as people in the general population. Green tea may affect prostate cancer progression According to results of a study published in Cancer Prevention Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, men with prostate cancer who consumed the active compounds in green tea demonstrated a significant reduction in serum markers predictive of prostate cancer progression. Novel light-sensitive compounds show promise for cancer therapy Chemists at the University of California, Santa Cruz, have developed novel compounds that show promise for photodynamic cancer therapy, which uses light-activated drugs to kill tumor cells. More Breast Cancer Current Events and Breast Cancer News Articles |
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