In spite of widespread mammographic screening for over 20 years, the likelihood of dying from breast cancer has been reduced only slightly.
Over 200,000 women will be diagnosed with invasive breast cancer this year, and nearly 60,000 additional women will be diagnosed with in situ (early) cancer. But for the 45,000 women who die every year from this disease, mammographic screening as a public health policy has been a failure, say medical experts at Power3 Medical Products, a biotechnology company specializing in the early detection, monitoring and targeting of diseases through the analysis of proteins.
National statistics show less than half of eligible women get mammograms regularly, some never do, and some women are "too young" to start screening according to current guidelines but not too young to develop breast cancer. However, even if all women followed guidelines exactly, the mortality rate of breast cancer would only be cut by one-third, at best. While this would far surpass any benefit seen during the past two decades, 30,000 breast cancer patients would still die each year.
Two basic flaws keep mammography from being the ultimate answer, according to Power3 Medical Products. First, mammograms miss cancers far more often than is generally appreciated; secondly, even when diagnosed by mammography, some cancers have already spread, such that so-called "early diagnosis" is not early enough.
While mammograms are billed as finding 90 percent of cancers before they can be felt, this is not true in women who have high-density background tissue, where studies show the detection rate for cancer is below 50 percent. A recent study in the New England Journal of Medicine showed breast MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) to be vastly superior to mammography in the detection of cancer, adding to numerous studies in the past with similar results. However, MRI is expensive, often leads to other testing because of false positives and is not covered by most insurers for asymptomatic screening.
Thus, a great need exists for a noninvasive screening test that will not only identify cancers currently being missed by mammography, but will also offer earlier detection. The good news is that a new test based on proteomics - the study and analysis of multiple proteins - may be able to show whether a patient has breast cancer years prior to mammography.
Power3 Medical Products (OTC BB: PWRM.OB) and the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston have developed the NAFTest (nipple aspirate fluid test). In this test, which is currently in clinical validation trials, a drop of fluid from the nipple is analyzed to detect the presence of specific breast cancer proteins.
The company says these protein biomarkers may be used in the future to see how breast cancer develops, to predict a person's susceptibility to the disease, to monitor its progression, and to determine the proper drug for an individual patient at a given stage of disease or treatment.
For more information on breast cancer and the development of the NAFTest, log on to www.power3medical.com. - NU |
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