Understanding Breast Cancer Recurrence, Metastatic Spread

Despite advancements in cancer detection and treatment, breast cancer that comes back or spreads still presents a challenge to researchers and oncologists. The American Cancer Society estimates that 44,130 Americans died of recurrent or metastatic breast cancer in 2021. Ten-year survival rates for patients fall from 93% to 27% when the cancer comes back and to 7% when the cancer returns and spreads to other parts of the body. Researchers from the University of Cincinnati (UC) and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center are studying the biology of breast cancer recurrence. The team led by UC’s Susan Waltz, PhD, and Cincinnati Children’s Susanne Wells, PhD, published recent findings on biomarkers that help predict outcomes and could be targets for new treatments in the journal PLoS ONE on September 6, 2022.  The article is titled “NMR-Based Metabolomic Analysis Identifies RON-DEK-β-Catenin Dependent Metabolic Pathways and a Gene Signature That Stratifies Breast Cancer Patient Survival.”