Overview
This project is a part of our wider research activity to identify prognostic and predictive factors in DCIS.
Ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) is a pre-invasive breast cancer. Almost thirty percent of DCIS cases treated with Breast Conserving Surgery (BCS) either recur or progress to frank invasive breast cancer (IBC). Radiotherapy and Tamoxifen as adjuvant therapies reduce recurrences by half. However, since a large majority of patients do not recur, adjuvant therapy is clearly an overtreatment for them. Similarly, since some patients recur despite adjuvant therapy, their tumours are non-responsive to these treatments. This underscores the need for good prognostic and predictive markers since current prognostic factors are not sufficiently accurate.
The Cell Cycle Proliferation (CCP) Score (Myriad Genetics, Inc. Salt Lake City, Utah, USA) determined by mRNA gene expression profiling has been shown to be an important prognostic factor in prostate, breast and other cancers.
This project will evaluate its role as a prognostic and/or predictive factor in DCIS.