News Release

Mayo Clinic Women’s Cancer Program will lead national research study

Grant and Award Announcement

Mayo Clinic

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- The Women's Cancer Program of the Mayo Clinic Cancer Center has been awarded a $6 million research grant to conduct research on biomarkers that may indicate which women with benign breast disease are at risk for eventually developing breast cancer.

The Department of Defense Breast Cancer Research Program awarded this Breast Cancer Center of Excellence grant. Lynn Hartmann, M.D., a Mayo Clinic medical oncologist specializing in breast cancer research and treatment, is the principal investigator and will lead the research team.

Women who have a breast biopsy with benign findings are currently defined as having benign breast disease.

"We know that some women with benign breast disease have an increased risk of eventually developing breast cancer and that the cancer can occur in either breast," says Dr. Hartmann. "What we lack are good research studies that identify these women so they can receive the necessary screening and risk-reduction strategies."

Each year, more than 200,000 women in the United States are diagnosed with breast cancer. However, very few of the current risk-prediction tests can identify which women are at greater risk for developing breast cancer. This new study will look for molecular risk predictors in benign breast tissue that identify women at increased risk for breast cancer.

The study will draw upon benign tissue specimens taken from 12,000 women who had breast biopsies performed at Mayo Clinic between 1967 and 1991. About 700 of those women went on to develop breast cancer. The benign tissue samples from those 700 women will form the study group for the research project. A comparison group will consist of the benign tissue samples from another 700 women who, during the same time, did not develop breast cancer. Researchers will compare molecular tissue markers in the specimens from the two groups. Because of the advances being made in cancer genetics and tumor biology, investigators will be able to compare numerous pathways and genes in the two study groups.

The research team will include Mayo Clinic Cancer Center genetic epidemiologists, laboratory scientists, biostatisticians, pathologists and clinicians specializing in breast care. They will be joined by two other experienced scientists -- Thea Tlsty, Ph.D., an internationally known tumor biologist at the University of California in San Francisco, and Kathryn Carolin, M.D., breast cancer surgeon and researcher at Wayne State University in Detroit, Mich.

"Through this innovative project developed by Dr. Hartmann and her collaborators at the Mayo Clinic Cancer Center, the discovery and use of new biomarkers to determine breast cancer risk will allow patients, physicians and researchers to develop improved prevention and treatment approaches to breast cancer," says Col. Kenneth A. Bertram, M.D., Ph.D., director of the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs at the Department of Defense in Washington, D.C.

Women may learn more about the study or about how Mayo treats benign breast disease by visiting the Internet site for the Mayo Clinic Diagnostic Breast Clinic at http://www.mayoclinic.org/breastpractice-rst/.

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Additional Contact:
Mary Lawson
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