Researchers gain more insight into evolution of pre-stage breast cancer

For every 10,000 breast cancer diagnoses in Belgium, about 2,000 people are found to have DCIS: a pile of abnormal cells in the milk ducts of the breast that are more likely to be a preliminary stage of breast cancer. DCIS, in full Ductal Carcinoma In Situ, does not always grow into a true breast cancer. Yet DCIS is always treated as breast cancer because one does not know which precursors continue to evolve and which do not. Thus, there are some women who have to undergo the entire breast cancer treatment when they would never develop a breast cancer. One errs on the side of caution.

Belgian and Dutch researchers have developed a method to better predict the progression of DCIS into invasive breast cancer. Using mice into which cells from individuals with DCIS were inserted, researchers can better identify which DCIS patients are at risk for breast cancer. Half of the mice with DCIS developed breast cancer and half did not. The researchers have discovered what factors play a role in DCIS in the experimental mouse population in whether or not it continues to develop into breast cancer. If they can show that the same factors also play a role in humans, the way lies open to better predicting which precursor stages will grow into a true breast cancer and which will not. In case there is no further malignant evolution, breast cancer treatment is no longer necessary.

Hutten S, de Bruijn R, Lutz C et al. A living biobank of patient-derived ductal carcinoma in situ mouse-tranductal xenografts identifies risk factors for invasive progression. Cancer Cell 2023 (27/4).