A group of scientists have found that triple negative breast cancer has genetic diversity in its tumours, which may change the way it is treated. The findings, published by Journal Nature, may also help explain why triple negative breast cancer, which represents 16 percent of all breast cancer, is so difficult to treat.
An international team of 59 scientists, including four from Vancouver-based Simon Fraser University (SFU), had this discovery after carrying out the largest genetic analysis of what were thought to be triple negative breast cancer tumours. They expected to see similar gene profiles when mapping on computer the genomes of 100 tumours, but eventually found no two genomes were similar, let alone the same. "Seeing these tumours at a molecular level has taught us we're dealing with a continuum of different types of breast cancer here, not just one," explains Steven Jones, an SFU molecular biology and biochemistry professor that is co-author of this study.