Despite considerable progress the last decades, breast cancer is still a debilitating and a deadly disease. Currently follow-up is only focused on early detection of local relapse. Surprisingly, there is no monitoring for early systemic relapse, even though the distant metastatic lesions will be lethal when they become clinically overt. Investigating circulating biomarkers like circulating tumor cells, cell-free DNA, exosomes, tumor-educated platelets and cytokines from blood has the potential to resolve some of these issues.
Liquid biopsies capturing circulating CTCs, ctDNA and microRNAs excreted from the tumor into the blood stream. Westphal M. et al, Nature Reviews Neurology (2015) 11, 556-566.
The aim of the study is to investigate the clinical relevance of new circulating tumor biomarkers in comparison to recurrence prediction, detection and treatment monitoring in stage I and II breast cancer patients. The project is organized into several sub-projects and will investigate tissue, blood and PROM data in 125 high risk breast cancer patients (all receiving adjuvant chemotherapy,with and without recurrences) that are accrued in the observational PBCB-project.
Sub-projects of the PerMoBreCan study:
- Analysis of primary tumor
- Clinical relevance of circulating tumor cells in early breast cancer
- Clinical relevance of circulating tumor DNA in early breast cancer
- Circulating microRNA from exosomes and TEPs
PI: Håvard Søiland, Stavanger University Hospital.
