Scientists further research work on breast cancer
SHARJAH: A team of scientists and medical researchers have begun studying the molecular or cellular causes of the 12 forms and subtypes of breast cancer and a mammary gland bank through which men and women breast cancer patients could donate tissues have been set up.
The mammary gland bank is called the Mayo Clinic Living Breast Biobank in Rochester, Minnesota. For now, it only accepts tissue donations only from “eligible patients” namely women having undergone cosmetic reduction mammoplasty and prophylactic mastectomy and men having undergone gynecomastia in Mayo Clinic hospitals in Minnesota, Florida and Arizona.
But in a recent email interview, Mayo ClinicDepartment of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology-stem Cell and Cancer Biology Lab director Nagarajan Kannan, PHD, expressed hope and positivity that this “new and bold initiative would accelerate breast cancer interception research.”
According to the American Institute for Cancer Research and the World Cancer Research Fund, breast cancer, commonest in women with one per cent affecting men worldwide, is the second most prevalent of all cancers with over two million cases in 2018, the highest rates in every 100,000 persons of which were in Belgium, Luxembourg, France, New Caledonia, and Lebanon. The World Health Organisation 2018 statistics revealed that affected were “2.09 million women with some men” and 627,000 deaths globally. Globocan 2018 records showed there were 1,054 new breast cancer women patients in the UAE that year.
Mayo Clinic which has an international network has at least two partners in the UAE namely the Sheikh Shakbout Medical City through the Abu Dhabi Health Services Company, and the American Hospital Dubai.
Kannan believes the key to finding new ways of early detection and prevention of breast cancers lie within the mammary glands: “The initiative may take several years.”
Hence, the mammary gland bank is relevant as while it is the first-ever in the world, it is a comprehensive laboratory which would be a rich source of everything that has to be unearthed, deciphered, and learnt about all the mammary stem and progenitor cells relative to the evolution of all breast cancers, necessary for the research and development of novel therapies; and, more importantly for preventive purposes.
Mammary progenitor cells originate from mammary stem cells; and, according to Kannan the interest on the dive into the cellular and molecular investigations was triggered by “recent discoveries (which had) confirmed that certain mammary progenitor cells are naturally vulnerable to cancer-causing mechanisms.”