Researchers Identify Biomarker for likely Aggressive, Early-Stage Breast Cancers

The one-size-fits-all approach to early stage breast cancer creates a paradox: Millions of dollars are spent on unnecessary surgeries and radiation to treat women with low-risk 'in situ' lesions, an estimated 85% of which would never progress to invasive cancers. Meanwhile, the standard conservative treatment is insufficient for many early-stage tumors that have progressed past the in situ stage and fails to prevent their spread to distant sites in the body.

Now Whitehead Institute researchers have identified SMARCE1, a gene overexpressed in the subset of early-stage cancers that are likely to become aggressively invasive -- making it possible for the first time to distinguish poorly invasive tumors from those that will likely spread and metastasize. With such a biomarker, doctors could better tailor therapies designed to match the behavior of each patient's cancer.

The researchers found that 50 percent of the early-stage cancers with high SMARCE1 expression will metastasize at some point in the 10 to 15 years after their initial diagnosis. "Early-stage cancers are not all the same. Some are destined to go rogue and should be treated from the outset with this understanding in mind," says Whitehead Member Piyush Gupta, who is also an assistant professor of biology at MIT.


Breast cancer begins as anomalous cells that divide out of control, usually in the milk ducts. In almost all cases, a patient does not succumb to the initial cancer but to the secondary tumors after the cancer has spread.