What is it about?
In our accumulated work, we found that a protein called endocan played a negative role in breast cancer prognosis. Here, we tried to evaluate the usability of endocan detected from a patient's blood using preclinical murine models of breast cancer and breast cancer patients. Despite a limited number of patients, we found endocan was more sensitive than the currently used protein markers to detect breast cancer recurrence.
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Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash
Why is it important?
If breast cancer is diagnosed at an early stage, cancerous lumps can surgically be removed. One of the most troublesome problems breast cancer patients ever face is cancer recurrence in later years, which leads to eventual death. Thus, it is of importance to detect breast cancer recurrence as early as possible in a patient-friendly manner, like blood withdrawal.
Perspectives
Not all breast cancer cells express the endocan protein. Since pathological exam provides a definitive diagnosis of breast cancer, including its subtypes, we will know that patient's breast cancer is endocan-positive or negative at the diagnosis. If the patient is diagnosed to be endocan-positive, blood endocan might be used as a indicator of breast cancer recurrence. I believe that further studies on breast cancer and endocan will move breast cancer management forward in the good direction.
Professor Yoshinori Kato
Hoshi University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Blood endocan as a biomarker for breast cancer recurrence, Cancer Biomarkers, October 2024, IOS Press,
DOI: 10.3233/cbm-240034.
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