Abstract
Tumor dissemination to distant organ is the main cause of death. Therefore there is urgent need to set up sensitive methods for early detection of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) and disseminated tumor cells (DTCs) in peripheral blood (PB) and bone marrow (BM) specimens of breast cancer patients. We aim to detect MUC2 mRNA positive cells in PB and BM of breast cancer patients; to relate this to patient relapse. In this study to detect MUC2 mRNA positive cells (tumor marker), PB and BM samples were collected from 50 breast cancer patients after operation and before adjuvant therapy with 20 PB from healthy individuals as negative controls. Chi-square test was used to analyze data. MUC2 mRNA by using Real-time PCR was detected in 9 (18%) of PB and in 10 (20%) of BM samples and none of the healthy individuals. The relapse rate among MUC2-positive patients was significance in BM (P
Highlights
Breast cancer is the leading cause of cancer death and the most frequently diagnosed cancer in females worldwide, in 2008, it accounted for 23% of the total new cancer cases and 14% of the total cancer deaths [1]
Different markers have been used for the molecular detection of bone marrow disseminated tumor cells (DTCs) and peripheral blood circulating tumor cells (CTCs) [5]
To evaluate the potential utility of MUC2 gene mRNA detection in the identification of disseminated and circulating breast cancer cells, we have studied the MUC2 mRNA in breast cancer peripheral blood and bone marrow samples
Summary
Breast cancer is the leading cause of cancer death and the most frequently diagnosed cancer in females worldwide, in 2008, it accounted for 23% of the total new cancer cases and 14% of the total cancer deaths [1]. With a rough incidence rate of 17.81 [2] comprising 24.4% of all neoplasms [3] in the year of 2006. In breast cancer, both hematogenous and lymphatic dissemination of carcinoma cells may occur even in patients with small tumors, so breast cancer is considered a systemic disease. The detection of occult micrometastases in bone marrow (BM) identifies the patients most likely at risk of developing systemic breast cancer relapse. These patients most likely benefit from systemic adjuvant therapy. It has been shown that detection of DTCs or CTCs (with enrichment step) by real-time RT-PCR can predict overall survival of a patient group including metastatic breast cancers [7]
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