Researchers from The Cancer Institute of New Jersey will share their views about how a common genetic variation can impact diagnosis of breast cancer in postmenopausal women, at the 101st Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research.

The tumor-suppressor gene, TSC1 is the main focus, as it plays an important role in tumor growth in breast cancer. TSC1 has been selected by investigators led by Kim M. Hirshfield, MD, PhD, Medical Oncologist at CINJ and assistant professor of medicine at UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School.

Blood samples from more than 1,000 women recruited through CINJ clinics, were evaluated for the presence of genetic changes in the DNA succession of the TSC1 gene. The presence of a specific DNA change does not affect age of diagnosis of breast cancer for young patients. But it appears to holdup disease onset in postmenopausal women.

Dr. Hirshfield said, "This research will provide the groundwork for understanding how common genetic changes in TSC1 may affect risk of developing breast and other cancers but may also provide clues for identifying those patients who may receive the most benefit from therapies targeting the mTOR pathway".

Madhura S. Mehta, BS, UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School; and Alexei Vazquez, PhD, CINJ, UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School are the authors of the work and it was funded by Ruth Estrin Goldberg Memorial for Cancer Research, The Breast Cancer Research Foundation and The New Jersey Commission on Cancer Research.