The American Cancer Society predicts 175,000 women in the United States will develop breast cancer this year. A blood test to detect prostate cancer in men is available. So what about a blood test to pick up breast cancer in women? One may be on the horizon.
Three years ago Kathleen Merkel lost a breast to cancer. "It grew really fast. In just a few months time, it was humongous," says Kathleen.
Prakesh Rao, Ph.D., a biochemist at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center in New Orleans, hopes to keep other women from going through the same thing. He enrolled Kathleen in a study to find out if breast cancer can be detected in the blood.
"We were fascinated to find that the blood of women with breast cancer contained levels of RCP that are about nine-fold higher than those in normal women," says Dr. Rao.
RCP carries vitamin B-2 or riboflavin to cells to keep them intact. Researchers say cancer cells will produce tremendous amounts to meet their nutritional requirements. They say it's these amounts that show up in a blood test.
"It represents a great deal of hope that we could provide a marker that would be useful to detect breast cancer fairly early," says Dr. Rao.
Doctors like Oliver Sartor, M.D., who deal with breast cancer every day, welcome a new tool to work with. "I think it would allow us to use this test as an adjunct to mammography to determine whether or not a woman might have breast cancer," says Dr. Sartor, an oncologist at LSU Health Sciences Center.
Kathleen says she hopes the test will help her and others in the future. "Hopefully no one else will have to go through what I went through. They'll detect it early with the blood test," she says.
Researchers predict with proper funding and further testing, the blood test may be available in about three years. It may also be used to pick up other estrogen-related cancers.
