LSU LCMC Health Cancer Center Researchers Uncover Key Immune Differences in Triple-Negative Breast Cancer
Researchers at the LSU LCMC Health Cancer Center have published groundbreaking findings in NPJ Breast Cancer that sheds new light on triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC), one of the most aggressive forms of breast cancer.
The National Cancer Institute (NCI)-funded study, led by Dr. Lucio Miele, Director of the LSU LCMC Health Cancer Center, in collaboration with colleagues at LSU Health New Orleans, City of Hope Cancer Center (Duarte, CA), and the University of California, San Diego, examined tumors from more than 250 Black and White women across Louisiana.
Unlike many earlier studies, this research balanced age, cancer stage, and other variables, allowing scientists to focus on the underlying biology of the disease rather than external factors.
The team analyzed survival rates, whole-transcriptome RNASeq and genetic ancestry. In their sample, Black race or obesity were not intrinsically predictive of poor outcomes. TNBC molecular portraits varied with stage and biological aggressiveness, irrespective of race. They identified a novel group of TNBCs with a distinctive luminal-like and stem-cell-like transcriptional profile that were equally distributed among Blacks and Whites. Immune deconvolution showed a higher abundance of several immune cell populations in tumors from Blacks, which may have precision therapeutic significance, warranting further investigation of potential drivers of tumor immunity.
Find the full study here.