Cancer researchers are now closer to creating a blood test that can identify breast cancer patients who are at increased risk of developing brain metastasis, and can monitor disease progression and response to therapy in real time.
They identified a group of cells in the bloodstream of patients who have breast cancer brain metastases, which could lead to the creation of more sensitive screening tools.
A proof-of-concept study, which was led by Dario Marchetti, detected a distinct group of circulating tumour cells (CTCs) associated with brain metastasis.
The finding brings cancer researchers closer to understanding how the “seeds” of metastatic disease can thrive in breast cancer patients and cause it to spread to the brain.
Marchetti said: “Unlocking the mystery of how these seeds of metastatic disease survive and thrive over a period of years, sometimes decades, is an enigma in cancer.
“Now we can take this information and develop a more sensitive screening tool to detect metastatic cancer in the blood, possibly even before metastasis is radiologically detectable by MRI.”
