‘One in 22 women likely to get breast cancer in the coming year’

An awareness walk on "Breast cancer" in Visakhapatnam. File Photo: C.V. Subrahmanyam

Kidwai Memorial Institute of Oncology, the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), and Strand Life Sciences have collaborated to conduct an in-depth molecular omics study of breast cancer in the Indian population.

This research programme is aimed at identification and validation of molecular signatures and biomarkers for Indian breast cancer patients.

According to a press release, such a study is significant in India, especially because breast cancer is the second leading cause of death among women. According to the National Cancer Registry Programme (NCRP) report its incidence is on the rise in all urban areas, including Bangalore.

Alarming trend

“An alarming indication of the trend suggests that one in every 22 women in India is likely to suffer from breast cancer in the coming year. Recent data suggests that a startling number of pre-menopausal, young Indian women are falling victim to the deadly disease. This data is in stark contrast to that of Caucasian women who suffer from breast cancer post-menopause mostly,” the release said.

The study involves over 300 consented adult Indian women who suffer from breast cancer. The objective of this study is to largely generate prognostic molecular signatures responsible for response to various therapies and treatments, metastasis, relapse and disease-free survival of affected Indian women.

Biological markers

“Strand plans to compare the publicly available data from Caucasian and African cohorts with data obtained at the end of this study. Further, it will utilise these results to develop and identify biological markers that can characterise subtypes and develop suitable diagnostic kits towards therapeutic prognosis predictions,” the release said.

“The project team in Bangalore will use breast tumour samples provided by the Kidwai Memorial Institute of Oncology and profiled by P. Kondaiah’s lab at IISc., Bangalore. Strand’s in silico data analysis tools and bioinformatics expertise will be leveraged by the team to find and validate potential signatures that could lead to biomarkers,” the release added.