Chapel Hill, NC - Wounds - and how they heal, scar and change body tissues - may hold clues to more effective treatments for breast cancer, University of North Carolina researchers have found.

Their work, “Activation of Host Wound Responses in Breast Cancer Microenvironment,” is published in the Nov. 15 issue of the journal Clinical Cancer Research, published by the American Association for Cancer Research.

“Normal breast tissue adjacent to a tumor undergoes many changes that are similar to changes caused by wounds. These changes differ between patients and are associated with breast cancer survival,” said study lead author Melissa Troester, PhD, assistant professor of epidemiology in the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health and member of the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Better understanding of the biology of normal tissue adjacent to tumors could help to identify new treatment strategies, Troester said. It also could explain why some breast conservation surgeries, particularly among young women, more commonly result in disease recurrence.

“Looking at normal breast tissue using methods that can measure the action of thousands of genes simultaneously, patients with cancer were very different from patients without cancer,” Troester said. “In fact, differences in the patients' normal tissue could be used to reliably identify who had disease. Since normal tissue is not removed in breast conserving surgery, it will be important to identify whether these alterations predict risk of recurrence.”

Troester and her team have been awarded a two-year $300,000 grant from the Avon Foundation to continue this research. Her co-investigator is Keith Amos, M.D, UNC assistant professor of surgery and a UNC Lineberger faculty member.

Troester’s laboratory research combines cancer epidemiology, biomarker development, and cancer genomics. Her goal is to identify and understand how genetic and environmental factors alter breast cancer risk and prognosis.

For more information, visit: http://clincancerres.aacrjournals.org
Note: Troester can be reached at (919) 966-7408 or Troester@email.unc.edu