Abstract
In this issue of the Journal, Xu et al. (1) used prospectively collected blood samples to determine whether epigenome-wide methylation profiles in blood DNA differ between women who subsequently develop breast cancer and those who do not. Potentially, such a profile could predict the risk of developing breast cancer or detect this disease days to several years before it appears clinically. Existing breast cancer risk prediction models have limited discriminatory accuracy for this common disease (2), and improved methods for early detection are also needed (3,4). In this context, the findings of Xu et al. are promising and exemplify the potential value of epigenome-wide association studies (5,6). However, several important considerations temper the initial enthusiasm and highlight challenges for future studies.
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