2018 Paint paper pink

2018 Paint the Paper Pink Lincoln Daily News October 2018 Page 71 therapies that help treat people with some types of breast cancer, don’t work for a woman with TNBC. Doctors use chemotherapy to treat these patients, but it isn’t very effective and may have a lot of side effects. If doctors had a way to identify women at risk for TNBC, they might be able to find cancer earlier, before it spreads. And, if doctors had a way to personalize treatment for women with TNBC, they might be able to improve a woman’s outlook and survival. One approach researchers are using to identify women at risk for TNBC and possible treatment options for TNBC is by studying inherited mutations in cancer genes. Understanding Breast Cancer Risk Genes A team of researchers in Rochester, Minnesota recently discovered mutations in 5 genes that seem to increase the risk for TNBC. These genes are known by several names: breast- cancer-risk genes, cancer-predisposition genes, and cancer-susceptibility genes. The research team was led by Fergus J. Couch, PhD, the Zbigniew and Anna M. Scheller Professor of Medical Research and Chair of the Division of Experimental Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the Mayo Clinic. About the Study About 10 to 15 percent of triple-negative breast cancers in Caucasians test positive for mutations in the BRCA1 gene. In the African American population, about 35 percent do. Until recently, BRCA1 was the only gene linked to TNBC. In the past, researchers weren’t able to identify other breast cancer risk genes, because the technology was too cumbersome to check the genes in large numbers of people, Couch says. “We used to check one gene at a time, which was very time consuming. But about 4 or 5 years ago, sequencing technology changed dramatically, so now we’re able to do these gene panels and check many genes at a time.” Couch and his research team used a technology called multigene panel testing on blood samples taken from people with triple- negative breast cancer. The technology looks at multiple genes simultaneously, looking for mutations that could be linked to breast cancer. The team studied how often mutations occurred in people with TNBC compared with a control group of people who didn’t have cancer. This was the first study to identify which mutated genes are linked to a highly increased risk for TNBC. They are: BARD1, BRCA1, BRCA2, PALB2, and RAD51D. Women who carried any of these gene mutations had a more than 20% lifetime risk for any type of breast cancer. By comparison, women in the general population have about a 12% —or 1 in 8—lifetime risk of getting breast cancer. “That means,” Couch says, “doctors should consider that women who have any of these mutations will have an increased risk for triple negative breast cancer. Also if a woman with breast cancer has one of these mutations, her doctor may need to consider using specific treatments. The team was not able to learn why African American women have an increased risk for TNBC and suggest that larger studies with African American patients be done. CONTINUE ...