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Micrograph showing a lymph node invaded by ductal breast carcinoma, with extension of the tumor beyond the lymph node. Credit: Nephron / Wikipedia
Breast Cancer Patients will soon be better off as a result of the disease.
The guidelines allow pathologists to identify which patients have more aggressive forms of breast cancer, which means they can be classified appropriately and their treatment can be tailored.
From 2019, the World Health Organization will be setting the guidelines for the fifth edition of the iconic "Blue book," Classification of Tumors of the Breast.
Dr. Amy McCart Reed Research Fellow said the team developed metaplastic breast carcinomas (MBC), a rare but aggressive form of breast cancer.
"For patients with MBC, we found the number of different cell types in the tumors had a significant impact on survival," Dr. McCart Reed said.
"The more diverse the tumor, the worse the patient's prognosis is likely to be.
"Among patients with a bad tumor like MBC, there are some who will do poorly, and this new metric helps us to categorize this.
"Previously, the WHO guidelines have described the types of cancer cells tumors without telling pathologists and how much to record.
"Now we can advise pathologists to record types of morphologies within tumors because more accurate prognosis can be made on this."
MBC accounts for all invasive breast cancers, but can be significantly increased.
UQ's Center for Clinical Research Head of Molecular Pathology Professor Sunil Lakhani said the research was possible to the establishment of the Asia-Pacific Metaplastic Breast Cancer Consortium (APMBCC).
"Creating APMBCC brought together a large enough cohort of these rare tumors for the first time in Australasia, which was necessary to draw conclusions about these incredibly various tumors," Dr. Lakhani said.
"Research using APMCC will help to identify novel therapeutic targets and pinpoint the potential for re-purposing existing cancer drugs."
The study was jointly funded by the National Breast Cancer Foundation and Cancer Australia, and involved Professor Sandra O'Toole from the Garvan Institute of Medical Research in Sydney.
The study is published in the Journal of Pathology.
Explore further:
Breast cancer breakthrough: Some tumors can stop their own spread
More information:
Amy Ellen McCart Reed et al. Phenotypic and Molecular Dissection of Metaplastic Breast Cancer and the Prognostic Implications, The Journal of Pathology (2018). DOI: 10.1002 / path.5184
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