New markers for breast cancer may assist diagnoses

the Oncology Nurse Advisor take:

New, additional diagnostic markers that may help oncologists to better predict and prevent breast cancer. Researchers at the Medical Informatics and Systems Division at the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute identified such markers in a recent genomic study.

Study authors compared blood samples from participants with healthy breasts and those with breast cancer, and they discovered a number of novel markers that could help forecast breast cancer. Samples were derived from samples from The Cancer Genome Atlas Project and the 1000 Genomes Project. Researchers focused on microsatellite variation, examining small regions of repeating DNA in the genome that can impact normal cellular function. Previous research has indicated that microsatellite variation can be a tell-tale cancer indicator. Researchers stated that future research examining such minute genomic changes could give clinicians new avenues to determining cancer risk.