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Breast Cancer Treatments Go Meta 
Metastasis via the blood stream is the most common cause of death in breast cancer patients, but a new medical finding could soon make it testable and, ultimately, more easily preventable. In a new study by New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center, funded by the National Cancer Institute, researchers identified a new breast cancer metastasis marker called Tumor Microenvironment of Metastasis (TMEM). The density of the TMEM-marker was more than double in patients that developed systemic metastases compared with the patients with only localized breast cancer. “Currently, anyone with a breast cancer diagnosis fears the worst, that the cancer will spread and threaten their lives,” says senior author Dr. Joan G. Jones, professor of clinical pathology and laboratory medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College. “A tissue test for metastatic risk could alleviate those worries, and prevent toxic and costly measures like radiation and chemotherapy.” According to the National Cancer Institute, 40 percent of breast cancer patients suffer a relapse and develop metastatic disease, and more than 40,000 women die from it each year. “If patients can be better classified as either low risk or high risk for metastasis, therapies can be custom tailored to patients, preventing over-treatment or under-treatment of the disease,” says Dr. Brian D. Robinson, resident in Anatomic Pathology at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center and co-author of the study. The discovery could directly impact survival rates by giving doctors the ability to assess each individual’s likelihood to develop metastasis based on more accurate information. "Traditionally, the likelihood of breast cancer metastasis is estimated based on tumor size, tumor differentiation – how similar or dissimilar the tumor is compared to normal breast tissue – and whether it has spread to the lymph nodes,” Jones says. “While these are useful measures, TMEM density directly reflects the blood-borne mechanism of metastasis, and therefore may prove to be more specific and directly relevant.”
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