Urine Samples Could Reveal Breast Cancer Risk (HealthDay)

FRIDAY, Oct. 3 (HealthDay News) -- A simple urine test could oneday be an effective way to screen for breast cancer, a new studysuggests.

The notion of a so-called "dipstick" test envisions a high-tech siftingthrough just a few drops of urine in the search for elevated levels of twoparticular biomarkers, MMP-9 and ADAM-12, which can sometimes indicate theearliest stages of tumor growth, the researchers noted.

"We have had longstanding interest in identifying and validatingnoninvasive biomarkers of human cancers, including breast cancer," notedstudy author Marsha A. Moses, of the Vascular Biology Program atChildren's Hospital Boston. "Recently, we identified a small panel ofproteins in the urine of women who have breast cancer, and these proteinspredict both disease status and stage of the cancer."

Moses' team published its findings in a recent issue of CancerEpidemiology, Biomarkers, & Prevention.

To explore the potential of urine screening for breast cancer, theauthors obtained samples from 148 women, 44 of whom had a precancerouscondition known as "atypical hyperplasia." Another 24 women had acancer-risk elevating condition known as lobular carcinoma in situ (LCIS),while the rest of the patients were healthy.

The research team concluded that elevated MMP-9 levels were associatedwith a fivefold increase in the risk for atypical hyperplasia and morethan a 13-fold increased risk for LCIS.

Although such screening is not currently an option for patients, Moseshas co-founded a company called Predictive Biosciences, which has beengiven a license for clinical research by Children's Hospital to developpractical screening applications based on her team's ongoing research.

Yet as Moses moves forward with efforts "to move these noninvasivecancer tests into the clinic," others suggest some caution iswarranted.

For his part, Dr. Eric P. Winer, director of the Breast Oncology Centerat the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, emphasized that the"findings are very preliminary."

"Any test -- particularly an easier blood, urine or saliva test -- thatcould reliably give us a better sense of risk could be useful," he said."But we have to be very careful when we apply new tests like this in theclinic to make sure that, before we do so, these tests are shown to bereliable and an improvement over what presently exists. So, there's stilla lot of work to be done."

Debbie Saslow, director of breast and gynecologic cancer at theAmerican Cancer Society, agreed.

"In theory, this could be really good," she said. "And biomarkers arean exciting field. But aside from this being preliminary, we also have todeal with the question, what are we going to do with those women who havethis biomarker? Because we already have ways to know which women are atincreased risk, but we don't have a lot to recommend for them once they'reidentified."

"So, before going further, we really have to figure out just how highrisk are women with these biomarkers in the first place," Saslow added."And while we'd all like to find a noninvasive way to detect cancer risk,until such questions are answered. my immediate reaction is a little morenegative than positive."

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