A "PSA"-like test for breast cancer?? to monitor during/after therapy
 

1: Mol Diagn Ther. 2006;10(1):41-7. Related Articles, Links

Detection of circulating tumor cells in peripheral blood of breast cancer patients during or after therapy using a multigene real-time rt-PCR assay.

Zehentner BK, Secrist H, Hayes DC, Zhang X, Ostenson RC, Loop S, Goodman G, Houghton RL, Persing DH.

HematoLogics, Inc., Seattle, Washington, USA.

AIM: To evaluate the utility of a multigene real-time reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) assay to detect circulating tumor cells in peripheral blood specimens of breast cancer patients during or after treatment. METHOD: Using this assay, peripheral blood samples were analyzed for expression levels of mammaglobin and three complementary transcribed breast cancer-specific genes: B305D, gamma-aminobutyrate type A receptor pi subunit (GABA pi; GABRP), and B726P. We examined 172 blood specimens from 82 breast cancer patients during or after therapy for the presence of circulating tumor cells using the multigene real-time RT-PCR assay. RESULTS: In 63.4% of the blood samples, a positive signal for mammaglobin and/or three breast cancer-associated gene transcripts was detected. Of breast cancer patients, 75.6% had at least one positive blood sample. Blood specimens from 51 of 53 healthy female volunteers tested negative in the assay whereas two samples had a low expression signal. In addition, three patients were monitored for more than a year during their adjuvant therapy treatment. CONCLUSION: This assay could be a valuable tool for monitoring breast cancer patients during and after therapy.