Hyperplasia is a benign condition that involves an overgrowth of apparently normal cells. A laboratory test to determine levels of expression of this receptor might be used in the future to reassure women at no increased risk or to guide decisions about screening and preventive measures in women whose risk is elevated, Dupont said. In addition, the findings suggest a new angle for scientists to explore in developing prevention strategies. TGF-beta is a powerful regulator of cell growth whose job is to instruct cells not to divide. This latest work focuses on differences in risk among women with the same diagnosis of benign breast disease based on histology.
Breast cancer is a disease with a very long memory.
There are things happening in the cell over a long period of time and it would nice to know what they are. The scientists identified 54 women in this cohort whose biopsies, conducted between 1965-1978, revealed a diagnosis of epithelial hyperplasia lacking atypia and who subsequently developed invasive breast cancer. However, the women in the control group did not develop breast cancer during subsequent follow-up. The researchers tested tissue removed at the time of each woman's initial with antibodies to the TGF-beta type II receptor. Specifically, when the receptor was expressed in fewer than 25 percent of the cells, the woman had more than three times the risk of subsequent invasive breast cancer, compared to women who had receptor expression in greater than 75 percent of their cells.