Newswise — Many women diagnosed with breast cancer make the dramatic decision to undergo treatment beyond a lumpectomy to diminish the risk of the cancer spreading once a tumor is removed. But in making the decision to perform additional procedures, women and their doctors are, in effect, betting that it’s better to overtreat rather than undertreat.
However, this approach ignores an important statistic: only 35 percent of women with newly diagnosed breast cancer have a tumor that will actually metastasize. These patients with an aggressive tumor are good candidates for chemotherapy. However, the majority of women with newly diagnosed breast cancer—approximately 65 percent—have tumors that are biologically incapable of metastasizing rendering these extra measures, particularly chemotherapy, unnecessary.
One man with a keen perspective on this challenge is Oscar Bronsther, M.D., Chief Executive Officer and Chief Medical Officer of MetaStat, Inc., a life sciences company. A Diplomat of the American Board of Surgery, he was Chairman of the Section of General Surgery at Inova Fairfax Hospital in Falls Church, VA. He is also Clinical Professor of Surgery at George Washington University in Washington, D.C.
At MetaStat, Dr. Bronsther and his distinguished team of colleagues are aiming to change the scenario described above. The company has developed new tests for women with breast cancer to analyze whether their cancer has metastatic potential, MetaSite Breast and MenaCalc. These tests are intended to potentially allow clinicians to customize cancer treatment decisions by identifying and differentiating high-risk patients who need aggressive therapy, and by possibly sparing low-risk patients from the harmful side effects and expense of chemotherapy and mastectomy.
MetaStat’s researchers have identified the important predictive role of the Mena protein. Although suppressed in the bodies of healthy adults, the Mena protein is present in cancer cells in various forms; if the test detects the most dangerous of these forms in a patient, he or she is more likely at risk of metastatic cancer.
Whereas MenaCalc is being developed to determine the potential for metastasis of several different cancers—including breast, prostate, lung and colorectal—MetaSite Breast is specifically designed to assess metastatic likelihood via an examination of breast cancer tissue. The technology might one day empower women and their healthcare providers to determine if they are likely to experience metastatic cancer and should undergo chemotherapy, or if such measures are unlikely to be useful.
With tests such as MetaSite Breast and MenaCalc on the horizon, the outlook for breast cancer diagnostics appears bright—offering the potential of a new era and more precise healthcare options for many women.
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