Tell-tale biomarker detects early Breast Cancer

Researchers have shown that magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can detect the earliest signs of breast cancer recurrence and fast-growing tumors. Their approach detects micromestastases, breakaway tumor cells with the potential to develop into dangerous secondary breast cancer tumors elsewhere in the body. The approach may offer an improved way to detect early recurrence of breast cancer in women and men. The work was completed at Case Western Reserve University (CWRU), Cleveland and was funded by the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB), part of the National Institutes of Health.

"MRI has a wide array of diagnostic applications and shows promise in breast cancer detection and treatment monitoring," said Richard Conroy, Ph.D., director of NIBIB Division of Applied Science and Technology. "The technique used by researchers in this study enables very early detection of metastatic spread, which would allow adaptation of treatment more quickly and hopefully lead to better outcomes in the future." Dr. Lu's team used a biochemical approach combined with MRI to detect molecular changes that signal micrometastases. To detect micromestastases, Lu and his team used MRI imaging, which uses a magnetic field and radio waves to produce images and combined it with a special chemical contrast solution. The contrast solution that the team developed contains a short piece of protein, or peptide, tagged with a minuscule magnet. They chose the peptide, a chain of just five amino acids,for its inclination to bind to protein matrix structures around cancer cells.