Stop Toward Earlier Breast Cancer Detection

A group of Harvard scientists has located a compound present a large amounts in cancerous cells which may enable earlier detection of breast cancer.

The researchers, at the Harvard affiliated Dana-Farber Cancer institute, found abnormal levels of cyclin E, a member of a family of proteins which regulate cell division, in 100% of cancerous cells studied.

A test for the presence of the compound may allow doctors to spot and treat patients in the early stages. By implicating a compound important in cell division, the group may have uncovered a central culprit in causing cancer, which is characterized by the unregulated and rapid proliferation of cells.

Research fellow Khandan Keyomarsi and Arthur B. Pardes, professor of biological chemistry and molecular pharmacology, published the findings in the February I issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.

The researchers began by comparing patterns in the expression of cyclin molecules in both normal and tumor cells. By examining the protein of 10 different cell lines, the researchers determined that cyclin E was present at abnormally high levels and also that its protein formed a different pattern in the cancerous cells.

According to Judah Folkman, professor of pediatric surgery at Children's Hospital and a leading breast cancer researcher, the discovery is "fundamental because it may be a general phenomenon."

"It provides a much earlier window to detect and treat breast cancer," Folkman said. "They're going back even earlier than when there's a lump."

It is thought that high levels of cyclin E are also present in cancerous cells from other parts of the body. If the mechanism by which cyclin E causes cells to grow out of control is determined, Keymarsi said, scientists can then attempt to arrest this growth.