Thursday 2 July 1998
The cause of breast cancer in ninety five per cent of cases is unknown. In many of these cases environmental carcinogens are suspected to be responsible. Now Dr David Phillips from the Institute of Cancer Research has discovered that healthy breast tissue contains carcinogens, opening up a new way of identifying the specific environmental factors which trigger breast cancer.
In a pilot study, a team at the Institute of Cancer Research in Sutton took healthy tissue from eight women who were undergoing breast reduction operations.
They found that some of these women had existing damage to the DNA of their breast cells. These cells were then exposed to extracts of lipids from the same breast. When the team examined the cells after this experiment, they found that damage to the DNA had increased. This direct exposure of the cells effectively 'speeded up' the process of damage to the DNA which was apparently already occurring in the breast.
Dr David Phillips who leads the research team said:
"This exciting new approach may point the way to identifying environmental causes of breast cancer. We suspect the presence of these carcinogens is the result of environmental factors, but we have yet to identify which ones. What is interesting at this stage is that we can actually see evidence of DNA damage taking place. We now need to find out what causes the damage and this will be the next stage of our research."
Genetic predisposition accounts for about five per cent of cases but, apart from ionising radiation, there is no proven trigger for non-familial breast cancer.
Notes to Editors:
The pilot study was funded by the Association for International Cancer Research.
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