A new gene referred to as DEAR1 may provide a prognostic marker for breast cancer. The gene was described by Ann Killary from the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center and her colleagues.
While breast cancer is usually a diagnosis made in elderly women, some develop the cancer much earlier. Cancer in young women is more likely to return or spread. Additionally, young women with breast cancer have a lower survival rate in comparison to older women with breast cancer. Thus, the ability to identify young women who are at a greater risk of cancer recurrence would be beneficial.
DEAR1 (ductal epithelium-associated RING Chromosome 1) is genetically altered by mutation and deletion in breast tumours, and was located on Chromosome 1 using a technique called “suppression subtractive hybridization”, which amplifies cDNA fragments using PCR. DEAR1 expression was found to be lost frequently in women with early-onset breast cancer. There was also a correlation between loss of DEAR1 expression and a strong family history of breast cancer. A 5-year follow-up study was conducted with over 100 pre-menopausal women diagnosed with breast cancer between the ages of 25 and 49. Results found that DEAR1-positive expression correlated significantly with a 95% local recurrence-free survival. Results indicate that DEAR1 expression is an independent predictor of local recurrence in early-onset breast cancer, suggesting its importance as a marker.
In relation, Senthil K. Muthuswamy from the Ontario Cancer Institute, Toronto, Canada, was not involved with the original study, but stated that "these observations identify DEAR1 as an excellent predictive biomarker for early onset breast cancers"
Lott, S.T., N. Chen, D.S. Chandler, Q. Yang, L. Wang, M. Rodriguez et al. DEAR1 is a dominant regulator of acinar morphogenesis and an independent predictor of local recurrence-free survival in early-onset breast cancer. Plos Medicine. 2009. Vol. 6, No. 5, e1000068, pp1-16
