Marker that Predicts Breast Cancer Metastasis

Filed in archive Diagnostics, Methodologies and Instrumentation on March 28, 2009

Researchers have identified a new marker for breast cancer metastasis called TMEM, for Tumor Microenvironment of Metastasis. These findings could lead to the first test to predict the likelihood of breast cancer metastasis via the bloodstream.

The Weill Cornell investigators set out to build on previous research by co-author Dr. John S. Condeelis of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Working in animal models, he identified a link between blood-borne or systemic metastasis and a three-part association between invasive carcinoma cells, perivascular white blood cells (macrophages) and the endothelial cells that line vessel walls. To confirm this finding in humans, Drs. Jones and Robinson developed a triple immunostain for human breast cancer samples that simultaneously labels the three cell types that together they named TMEM (Tumor Microenvironment of Metastasis).

TMEM density was found to be more than double in the group of patients who developed systemic metastases compared those with only localized breast cancer. If these findings could be verified using larger study populations, this approach may be used to classify patients as either low risk or high risk for metastasis, and thus, therapies can be custom tailored to patients, preventing over-treatment or under-treatment of the disease.