New breast pap smear detects early cellular changes; May prevent onset of bre...( rker to monitor if the preventive agent...),Health

Women aged 35 to 55 who are at high risk for breast cancer are eligible to join the clinical trial. High risk is defined as having two first degree relatives who had breast cancer; an abnormal breast biopsy or mammogram or a carrier of BRCA 1 or 2 -- genes that confer a 90 percent lifetime risk of breast cancer.

Despite these criteria, Seewaldt cautions that there is no definitive way to measure risk without a test because the majority of breast cancers develop at random.

"As women in America, we are all at risk for breast cancer," said Seewaldt. "Mammograms and self breast exams are good tests for looking at cancer, but they don't always do a good job of finding early changes in the breast."

While the test is only available at three clinical sites (Duke, Kansas and Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute at The Ohio State University) as part of a clinical trial, Seewaldt hopes it will ultimately be available at numerous sites around the country. The test is cheap and so simple to administer and analyze that even a basic clinical laboratory could carry it out, she added. It requires only a syringe and pap smear fluid -- no refrigeration or special preservation -- and a simple "PCR" test to amplify genes that even a high school student could perform in the laboratory.

The test works as follows: the breast is first numbed with a local anesthetic, a slender needle is inserted into the inner quadrant of the breast, then it is slightly withdrawn and reinserted eight to 10 times in precisely defined segments of the breast. The process, called random fine needle aspiration, is repeated on the breast's outer quadrant to ensure that cells are extracted f
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Contact: Becky Levine
levin005@mc.duke.edu
919-684-4148
Duke University Medical Center
4-Mar-2004