National Cancer Institute grant will help 
College of Medicine researchers find 
early signs of breast cancer
Project to Use Advanced Scanning Techniques to Follow Progress of Cancer Patients; 
May Lead to More Effective, Earlier Diagnosis of Cancer

Irvine, Calif., June 18, 2001 -- A UC Irvine College of Medicine research team received a $2 million grant to use advanced scanning techniques to determine whether early changes in breast cells lead to cancer.

The five-year grant from the National Cancer Institute will help the team provide greater insight into the molecular changes that occur in cancer cells and may result in new, highly sensitive techniques that can detect abnormal breast tissue growth before it develops into cancer.  Currently, it is very difficult for physicians to predict how severe an early-stage case of breast cancer will become.

Orhan Nalcioglu, professor of radiology and director of the UCI Research Imaging Center, and his colleagues at the Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, will take magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans of about 100 women in the early stages of breast cancer for the next five years.  They will see if cancer recurs, spreads to other areas of the body (a process called metastasis) or is treated successfully by therapy.

At the end of five years, the researchers will compare the scans of women who did not develop further stages of breast cancer with those who did and analyze any differences in chemical, blood vessel and cellular activity.

Breast cancer is one of the most common cancers affecting women (behind skin cancer) and makes up one-third of all cancer diagnoses among American women, according to the American Cancer Society.  Each year, about 175,000 cases are diagnosed, and 43,000 die from the disease.  A breast cancer diagnosis is challenging to physicians because early stages have no symptoms, and even the most sensitive diagnostic equipment in use may not detect cancer early enough and cannot predict how aggressive the cancer may become in later stages.

"One of the biggest problems with diagnosing breast cancer is the difficulty in determining whether an early stage growth will spread as cancer, or never develop at all," said Nalcioglu.  "This grant from NCI will help us determine if there are molecular or cellular indicators of later cancer that we may be able to use to prognose cancer and help physicians deliver the appropriate therapy."

Magnetic resonance imaging is powerful enough to take a detailed "snapshot" of the body's cells and can yield precise information on the formation of tiny structures, such as blood vessels.  It will also measure the concentration of proteins and other chemicals within a cell.  The combined information from MRI and measuring chemical composition is believed to provide a more accurate picture of how aggressive the cancer will be.

The researchers will look at the creation of blood vessels in tumors to check for a process called angiogenesis.  In angiogenesis, tumor cells stimulate the growth of tiny blood vessels to feed their cancerous spread and can be an indicator of more aggressive cancer.  In addition, the group will search for a number of proteins and other cellular chemicals, called biomarkers, that are known to play a role in the development of cancer. 

Some of the biomarkers to be analyzed include VEGF, known to stimulate angiogenesis; CD31, which increases the number of blood vessels around cells; p53, which helps cause mutations in cancer; TSP-1, an enzyme that controls cell growth; and CD105, which regulates the growth of new blood vessels.

"Physicians have always had to balance the aggressiveness of breast cancer treatments against how severe they think the cancer is in each patient," Nalcioglu said. "This has been something of a guessing game, since there are no precise indicators that can predict how severe the cancer might be.  We hope that we can match these biomarkers and blood vessel density studies with the development of cancer in women.  This may eventually result in tools that we can use for earlier and more precise prognosis of breast cancer."

The group currently is conducting the MRI study at UCI Medical Center in Orange.  Women who have been diagnosed with the early stages of breast cancer (stages I or II) and are interested in participating in the study should call Donna Jackson at (714) 456-8549 for more information.

The study is also supported by a gift from the Avon Products Foundation.  Dr. Nalcioglu's colleagues on the study include John Butler, Philip Carpenter, Dvora Cyrlak, John Fruehauf, James Jakowatz, Rita Mehta and Lydia Su, all of UCI.

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Contact:
Andrew Porterfield
(949) 824.3969
amporter@uci.edu

Media Contact:  Kim Pine
(714) 456-7759
kpine@uci.edu