Advertisement

Study: Protein marker ID'd that can predict whether metastatic cancer will turn deadly

By Allen Cone

Oct. 17 (UPI) -- A newly identified protein marker could help predict whether lethal, metastatic cancer will develop in breast cancer patients, according to new research.

Researchers at Mount Sinai Hospital and Mount Sinai School of Medicine found when none or a small amount of the protein NR2F1 metastasized into bone marrow from a breast cancer patient's original tumor, patients in the study all died.

Advertisement

On the other hand, patients with a high concentration of NR2F1 in cancer cells in their bone marrow did not frequently develop this version of metastatic cancer and lived longer, researchers reported.

The findings were published Tuesday in the journal Breast Cancer Research.

"Tests using this protein marker could further improve curative treatment of breast cancer, sparing patients from unnecessary treatments," Dr. Julio Aguirre-Ghiso, director of solid tumor and metastasis research at Mount Sinai's Icahn School of Medicine, said in a press release. "Identifying patients with disseminated disease that is not yet symptomatic and characterizing it for potential dormancy or metastatic recurrence is a game changer."

The most common breast type of breast cancer, when it metastasizes, can go to the lungs or liver, but almost always goes to the bone.

Advertisement

If the protein is absent in cancer cells, it can signal whether the patient will relapse soon and that additional treatment is needed. Otherwise if the cancer cells are dormant, the patient can be monitored rather than undergo unnecessary treatment, the researchers said.

"This opens the way for testing new treatments that prevent metastasis by inducing dormancy or eradicating the dormant disseminated cancer cells that have not yet initiated metastatic growth," Aguirre-Ghiso said.

In the United States, bone marrow tests, called aspirates, are not used to monitor patients.

Mount Sinai researchers collaborated with physicians and scientists in Oslo, Norway, where bone marrow aspirates monitor patients. The analyssis was conducted at Bjorn Naume from University Hospital of Oslo at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

Studied were 114 bone marrow samples from 86 selected disseminated tumor cells of breast cancer patients from 1995 to 2008.

Research had already found that androgen deprivation treatment, an anti-hormone therapy used in prostate cancer, has been linked to increasing levels of the NR2F1 protein. Mount Sinai has already begun recruiting prostate cancer patients to test two drugs to induce dormancy through NR2F1 upregulation.

"Improved techniques to assess the population of patients with residual disease and their dormant or reactivating state will be key to identifying the risk of future metastasis despite undergoing standard treatment," Aguirre-Ghiso said.

Advertisement

Latest Headlines