New way to determine whether metastatic cancer cells in breast cancer patients are dormant or soon to turn deadly
For the first time ever, Mount Sinai researchers have identified a protein as a marker that can indicate whether a cancer patient will develop a reoccurrence of lethal, metastatic cancer, according to a clinical study published in Breast Cancer Research in October.
The researchers found that when cells from a breast cancer patient’s original tumor metastasized into the patient’s bone marrow with none, or only a small amount, of the protein NR2F1, the patients all soon died. However, patients who had a high concentration of NR2F1 in the cancer cells in their bone marrow did not frequently develop this type of metastatic cancer, and lived longer. The presence of a high concentration of NR2F1 induced dormancy in the cancer cells, essentially deactivating them, so this research shows that survival in these patients is due to the dormancy of the disseminated cancer.
These findings suggest that the absence of this protein in cancer cells that have spread to a patient’s bone marrow can reliably signal that the patient will relapse soon and that additional treatment is needed, while if the protein is present, the cancer cells are dormant and the patient can be monitored rather than undergo unnecessary treatment. This research is particularly important because the most common breast type of breast cancer, when it metastasizes, almost always goes to the bone.
The research is especially important in the United States because bone marrow tests, called aspirates, are not used to monitor patients there. The study was a collaboration with physicians and scientists in Oslo, Norway, where bone marrow aspirates are used to monitor patients. The laboratory of Bjorn Naume from University Hospital of Oslo collaborated with the Aguirre-Ghiso and Sosa labs at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and conducted the analysis of the patients’ samples from their clinical trials, thus contributing significantly to this research.
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