Breast Cancer

Biography

Biography: Lei Huo

Abstract

Inflammatory breast cancer is characterized by clinical hallmarks of diffuse erythema and edema (peau d’orange) involving one third or more of the breast skin caused by tumor emboli blocking dermal lymphatics, and rapid progression from the onset of the disease. It is the most aggressive form of breast cancer, comprising 1-5% of newly diagnosed breast cancer in the United States. The survival outcomes of patients with inflammatory breast cancer are poor with standard therapy. There is an urgent need for new therapeutic targets. At the molecular level,  the  few published mRNA expression profiling studies have indicated that transcriptional heterogeneity exists in inflammatory breast cancer as extensively as in non-inflammatory breast cancer. Recent advances have implicated the role of microRNA as oncogenes or tumor suppressor genes in tumorigenesis, metastasis and response to treatment in various cancer types including breast cancer.  In our recent study, the microRNA expression profiles of 23 inflammatory breast cancer, 24 non-inflammatory advanced breast cancer and 12 normal breast tissue fresh frozen samples were generated using a previously validated microRNA microarray assay. Among  the differentially expressed microRNAs,  microRNA-205 expression was decreased not only in tumor compared with normal breast tissue, but also in inflammatory breast cancer compared with non-inflammatory breast cancer. Lower expression of microRNA-205 correlated with worse distant metastasis-free survival and overall survival in our cohort. Thus, microRNA-205 may serve as a therapeutic target in advanced breast cancer including inflammatory breast cancer.