To estimate the rate of pathologic complete response (pCR) to neoadjuvant chemotherapy in BRCA1 mutation carriers according to chemotherapy regimen.
From a registry of 6,903 patients, we identified ...102 women who carried a BRCA1 founder mutation and who had been treated for breast cancer with neoadjuvant chemotherapy. Pathologic complete response was evaluated using standard criteria.
Twenty-four (24%) of the 102 BRCA1 mutation carriers experienced a pCR. The response rate varied widely with treatment: a pCR was observed in one (7%) of 14 women treated with cyclophosphamide, methotrexate, and fluorouracil (CMF); in two (8%) of 25 women treated with doxorubicin and docetaxel (AT); in 11 (22%) of 51 women treated with doxorubicin and cyclophosphamide (AC) or fluorouracil, doxorubicin, and cyclophosphamide (FAC), and in 10 (83%) of 12 women treated with cisplatin.
A low rate of pCR was observed in women with breast cancer and a BRCA1 mutation who were treated with AT or CMF. A high rate of pCR was seen after treatment with cisplatin. An intermediate rate of PCR was associated with AC or FAC. The relative benefits of AC and platinum therapy need to be confirmed through follow-up of this and other cohorts.
Despite ongoing trials of PARP inhibitors in the treatment of breast cancer (BC), the extent of poly(ADP-ribose)polymerase-1 (PARP-1) protein expression in BCs, which may influence treatment results, ...is not known. The purpose of this report is to assess expression of PARP-1 in BC including
BRCA1
-associated, triple negative (TN), and basal-like tumors. Immunohistochemistry with a PARP-1 antibody on tissue microarrays from 130
BRCA1
-associated and 594
BRCA1
-non-related BCs was used. The vast majority of breast carcinomas expressed high level of nuclear PARP-1 protein and a small percentage of tumors exhibited both nuclear and cytoplasmic PARP-1 expression. There was a significant difference between the mean nuclear PARP-1 quickscore in
BRCA1
-associated versus
BRCA1
-non-associated carcinomas in all tumors (
P
< 0.0001), in the basal-like group (
P
= 0.0086), TN (
P
= 0.0015), and non-basal-like groups (
P
= 0.016) but not in the non-TN group. Among
BRCA1
-associated BCs, low PARP-1 expression was found in 18.5% of all cases, 18.9% of basal-like and 21% of TN cancers. Among
BRCA1
-non-related tumors, low PARP-1 expression was found in 8.8% of all cases, 3.1% of basal-like, and 2.7% of TN cancers. PARP-1 expression is significantly associated with
BRCA1
status in basal-like and TN BCs. The assessment of PARP-1 expression in tumor samples may improve the selection of BC patients for PARP inhibitor therapy.
To estimate the risk of breast cancer in a woman who has a CHEK2 mutation depending on her family history of breast cancer.
Seven thousand four hundred ninety-four BRCA1 mutation-negative patients ...with breast cancer and 4,346 control women were genotyped for four founder mutations in CHEK2 (del5395, IVS2+1G>A, 1100delC, and I157T).
A truncating mutation (IVS2+1G>A, 1100delC, or del5395) was present in 227 patients (3.0%) and in 37 female controls (0.8%; odds ratio OR, 3.6; 95% CI, 2.6 to 5.1). The OR was higher for women with a first- or second-degree relative with breast cancer (OR, 5.0; 95% CI, 3.3 to 7.6) than for women with no family history (OR, 3.3; 95% CI, 2.3 to 4.7). If both a first- and second-degree relative were affected with breast cancer, the OR was 7.3 (95% CI, 3.2 to 16.8). Assuming a baseline risk of 6%, we estimate the lifetime risks for carriers of CHEK2 truncating mutations to be 20% for a woman with no affected relative, 28% for a woman with one second-degree relative affected, 34% for a woman with one first-degree relative affected, and 44% for a woman with both a first- and second-degree relative affected.
CHEK2 mutation screening detects a clinically meaningful risk of breast cancer and should be considered in all women with a family history of breast cancer. Women with a truncating mutation in CHEK2 and a positive family history of breast cancer have a lifetime risk of breast cancer of greater than 25% and are candidates for magnetic resonance imaging screening and for tamoxifen chemoprevention.
Summary Background Mutations in PALB2 predispose to breast cancer, but the effect on prognosis of carrying a PALB2 mutation has not been ascertained. We aimed to estimate the odds ratio for breast ...cancer in women with an inherited mutation in PALB2 and 10-year survival after breast cancer in patients who carry a PALB2 mutation. Methods Between 1996 and 2012, patients with invasive breast cancer were recruited prospectively from 18 hospitals in Poland and genotyped for two deleterious mutations in PALB2 (509_510delGA and 172_175delTTGT). A control group of 4702 women without cancer was recruited for comparison. The primary endpoint was death from any cause, as determined by medical records from the Polish Ministry of the Interior and Administration. In patients with breast cancer, 10-year survival of carriers of a PALB2 mutation was calculated and compared with that of non-carriers. Findings 17 900 women with breast cancer were invited to participate, of whom 12 529 were genotyped successfully. A PALB2 mutation was present in 116 (0·93%, 95% CI 0·76–1·09) of 12 529 patients and in ten (0·21%, 0·08–0·34) of 4702 controls (odds ratio 4·39, 95% CI 2·30–8·37; p<0·0001). 10-year survival for women with breast cancer and a PALB2 mutation was 48·0% (95% CI 36·5–63·2), compared with 74·7% (73·5–75·8) for patients with breast cancer without a mutation (adjusted hazard ratio for death 2·27, 95% CI 1·64–3·15; p<0·0001). Interpretation Women with a PALB2 mutation face an increased risk of breast cancer and might be at a higher risk of death from breast cancer compared with non-carriers. Increased surveillance should be offered to unaffected women who carry a PALB2 mutation. Funding Polish National Science Centre.
Recent reports based on a substantial number of cases, warrant need for population-based research to determine implications of constitutional methylation of tumor suppressor genes such as BRCA1 ...occurring in healthy tissue in the prediction of cancer. However, the detection of the constitutional methylation in DNA extracted from blood has already been shown to be technologically challenging, mainly because epimutations appear to be present in blood at a very low level. The analytical sensitivity required for low-level methylation detection can be provided by NGS, but this technique is still labor and cost-intensive. We assessed if PCR-based MS-HRM and BeadChip microarray technologies, which are standardized and cost-effective technologies for methylation changes screening, provide a sufficient level of analytical sensitivity for constitutional BRCA1 methylation detection in blood samples. The study included whole blood samples from 67 healthy women, 35 with previously confirmed and 32 with no detectable BRCA1 promoter methylation for which we performed both MS-HRM based BRCA1 gene methylation screening and genome wide methylation profiling with EPIC microarray. Our results shown, that low-level BRCA1 methylation can be effectively detected in DNA extracted from blood by PCR-based MS-HRM. At the same time, EPIC microarray does not provide conclusive results to unambiguously determine the presence of BRCA1 constitutional methylation in MS-HRM epimutation positive samples. The analytical sensitivity of MS-HRM is sufficient to detect low level BRCA1 constitutional epimutation in DNA extracted from blood and BeadChip technology-based microarrays appear not to provide that level of analytical sensitivity.
To estimate 10-year overall survival (OS) rates for patients with early-onset breast cancer, with and without a BRCA1 mutation, and to identify prognostic factors among those with BRCA1-positive ...breast cancer.
A total of 3,345 women with stage I to III breast cancer, age ≤ 50 years, were tested for three founder mutations in BRCA1. Information on tumor characteristics and treatments received was retrieved from medical records. Dates of death were obtained from the vital statistics registry. Survival curves for the mutation-positive and -negative subcohorts were compared. Predictors of OS were determined using the Cox proportional hazards model.
Of the 3,345 patients enrolled onto the study, 233 (7.0%) carried a BRCA1 mutation. The 10-year survival rate for mutation carriers was 80.9% (95% CI, 75.4% to 86.4%); for noncarriers, it was 82.2% (95% CI, 80.5% to 83.7%). The adjusted hazard ratio (HR) associated with carrying a BRCA1 mutation was 1.81 (95% CI, 1.26 to 2.61). Among BRCA1 carriers with a small (< 2 cm) node-negative tumor, the 10-year survival rate was 89.9%. Among BRCA1 mutation carriers, positive lymph node status was a strong predictor of mortality (adjusted HR, 4.1; 95% CI, 1.8 to 8.9). Oophorectomy was associated with improved survival in BRCA1 carriers (adjusted HR, 0.30; 95% CI, 0.12 to 0.75).
The 10-year survival rate among women with breast cancer and a BRCA1 mutation is similar to that of patients without a BRCA1 mutation. Among women with a BRCA1 mutation, survival was much improved after oophorectomy.
Prostate cancer is one of the most commonly diagnosed malignancies among men in Western populations. Evidence reported in the literature suggests that zinc may be related to prostate cancer. In this ...study we evaluated the association of serum zinc levels and polymorphisms in genes encoding zinc-dependent proteins with prostate cancer in Poland.
The study group consisted of 197 men affected with prostate cancer and 197 healthy men. Serum zinc levels were measured and 5 single nucleotide polymorphisms in MMP-1, MMP-2, MMP-7, MMP-13, MT2A genes were genotyped.
The mean serum zinc level was higher in prostate cancer patients than in healthy controls (898.9±12.01 μg/l vs. 856.6±13.05 μg/l, p<0.01). When compared in quartiles a significant association of higher zinc concentration with the incidence of prostate cancer was observed. The highest OR (OR = 4.41, 95%CI 2.07-9.37, p<0.01) was observed in 3rd quartile (>853.0-973.9 μg/l). Among five analyzed genetic variants, rs11568818 in MMP-7 appeared to be correlated with 2-fold increased prostate cancer risk (OR = 2.39, 95% CI = 1.19-4.82, p = 0.015).
Our results suggest a significant correlation of higher serum zinc levels with the diagnosis of prostate cancer. The polymorphism rs11568818 in MMP-7 gene was also associated with an increased prostate cancer risk in Poland.
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