Predictive accuracy of the breast cancer genetic risk model based on eight common genetic variants: The BACkSIDE study.

Breast cancer (BC) development is caused by the interaction of environmental and genetic factors. At least 90 susceptible genetic variants with different population penetration and incidence have been associated with BC. This paper therefore analysed the individual discrimination power of 8 low penetrant common genetic variants and calculated the predictive accuracy of the genetic risk model. The study enrolled 171 women with developed breast cancer (57.06 ± 11.60 years) and 146 control subjects (50.24 ± 10.69 years). The genotyping was performed by high resolution melting method (HRM) and confirmed by Sanger sequencing, and the Random Forest algorithm provided the ROC curve with AUC values. Significant association with BC was confirmed in 2 SNPs: rs2981582 FGFR2 and rs889312 MAP3K1, and the odds ratios of homozygotes with two risk alleles in both SNP's were higher than in heterozygotes with one mutant allele, as follows: FGFR2 TT: 1.953 (95%CI 1.014-3.834, p = 0.049), CT 1.771 (95%CI 1.088-2.899, p = 0.026) and MAP3K1 CC 2.894 (95%CI 1.028-9.566, p = 0.048), AC 1.760 (95%CI 1.108-2.813, p = 0.019). FGFR2 had the best discrimination ability, followed by MAP3K1 and CASP8. Discriminative accuracy of the genetic risk model distinguishing the breast cancer patients and controls explained by AUC was 0.728, with 70.6% sensitivity and 65.1% specificity. Our study results therefore confirmed polygenic breast cancer inheritance with important involvement of FGFR2, MAP3K1, LSP1 and CASP8 gene variants.

Breast cancer and Flammer syndrome: any symptoms in common for prediction, prevention and personalised medical approach?

An epidemic scale of the breast cancer (BC) prevalence is actually recognised as the reality of the early twenty-first century. Particularly alarming is that the sporadic BC (about 90% of all patients) creates currently unpredictable subpopulations in terms of disease predisposition, development and progression. Despite broad discussions run since years in BC area, no any plausible approach has been suggested so far to get the overall situation better controlled in the populations. Here, we present highly innovative concepts considering investigation of specific syndromes and symptoms underestimated till now in relationship with BC predisposition and development. Consequently, the purpose of our pilot project was to evaluate the prevalence of Flammer Syndrome (FS) in BC patient cohort. The results achieved here support the main hypothesis of the project clearly demonstrating the tendency of BC patients to the increased prevalence of FS symptoms compared to the disease-free individuals. Our study strongly indicates the relevance of FS symptoms for BC pathology such as feeling inadequately cold, deficient thermoregulation, altered sensitivity to different stimuli, potential dehydration, altered sleep patterns, tendency towards headache, migraine attacks and dizziness. Moreover, the symptoms' appearance is specifically linked to the individual BC subtypes. Potential mechanisms interconnecting FS with BC pathology are discussed.

DNA methylation and detection of cervical cancer and precancerous lesions using molecular methods.

Cervical cancer is the third most common cancer disease affecting the female population, and a key factor in the development of the disease is the human papillomavirus infection (HPV). The disease is also impacted by epigenetic changes such as DNA methylation, which causes activation or exclusion of certain genes. The aim of our review is to summarize and compare the most common molecular methods for detection of methylated promoter regions in biomarkers occurring in cervical carcinoma and also show the importance of connections of HR-HPV testing with methylation analysis in patients with cervical intraepithelial neoplasia. Insight into genetic and epigenetic alterations associated with cervical cancer development can offer opportunities for the molecular biomarkers that can be useful for screening, diagnosis, and also as new ways of treatment of cervical cancer precursor lesions.

Active cigarette smoking and the risk of breast cancer at the level of N-acetyltransferase 2 (NAT2) gene polymorphisms.

The aim of our study was to assess the correlation between the tobacco exposure and NAT2 gene (rs1041983 C/T, rs1801280 T/C, rs1799930 G/A) polymorphisms in association with breast cancer development. We wanted to determine the prognostic clinical importance of these polymorphisms in association with smoking and breast cancer. For the detection of possible association between smoking, NAT2 gene polymorphisms, and the risk of breast cancer, we designed a case-controlled study with 198 patients enrolled, 98 breast cancer patients and 100 healthy controls. Ten milliliters of peripheral blood from the cubital vein was withdrawn from every patient. The HRM (high resolution melting) analysis was used for the detection of three abovementioned NAT2 gene polymorphisms. When comparing a group of women smoking more than 5 cigarettes a day with the patients smoking fewer than 5 cigarettes a day, we found out that if women were the carriers of aberrant AA genotype for rs1799930, the first group of women had higher risk of breast carcinoma than the second group. If patients were the carriers of aberrant TT genotype for rs1041983, for rs1801280CC genotype, and rs1799930AA genotype and they smoked more than 5 cigarettes a day, they had higher risk of malignant breast disease than never-smoking women. Our results confirm the hypothesis that NAT2 gene polymorphisms (rs1041983 C/T, rs1801280 T/C, and rs1799930 G/A) in association with long-period active smoking could be the possible individual risk-predicting factors for breast cancer development in the population of Slovak women.