Breast Cancer :: Unique estrogen receptor linked to metastatic breast cancer

Providence, RI ?V Breast cancer awareness month may have passed, but researchers remain focused on the disease with a new study showing that a unique estrogen receptor found in breast cancer tumors is a predictor of tumor size and metastases. The study, led by researchers at Rhode Island Hospital and Brown Medical School, is published in the November 1 issue of Clinical Cancer Research.

“We found that a novel estrogen receptor, termed GPR30, is linked to breast tumor progression and increased tumor size,”says lead author Edward J. Filardo, PhD, research associate at Rhode Island Hospital and assistant professor at Brown Medical School. “Furthermore, the results support prior research suggesting that GPR30 acts independently from the two known estrogen receptors, ER?? and ER??.”

Findings may influence future treatment decisions involving hormone therapy.

Breast cancer is a cancer of breast tissue. Worldwide, it is the most common form of cancer in females, affecting, at some time in their lives, approximately one out of nine to thirteen women who reach age ninety in the Western world. It is the second most fatal cancer in women (after lung cancer), and the number of cases has significantly increased since the 1970s, a phenomenon partly blamed on modern lifestyles in the Western world. Because the breast is composed of identical tissues in males and females, breast cancer can also occur in males, although cases of male breast cancer account for less than one percent of the total.


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