Light directed at a breast tumor through a needle can provide pathologists with biological specifics of the tumor and help oncologists choose treatment options that would be most effective for that individual patient.

A unique genetic signature can alert physicians to high-risk breast tumors that are masquerading as low-risk tumors, according to research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and collaborating institutions. Although these tumors are apparently estrogen-receptor positive — meaning they should depend on estrogen to grow — they don't respond well to anti-estrogen therapy.

A new medical imager for detecting and guiding the biopsy of suspicious breast cancer lesions is capable of spotting tumors that are half the size of the smallest ones detected by standard imaging systems, according to a new study.

Breast tumors that are 1 centimeter in size or smaller — no more than 0.4 inch in length — can still be very aggressive and may require more intensive therapy than is routinely offered today, say researchers at Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Fla.

Researchers from University Hospitals (UH) Ireland Cancer Center and Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine are part of a new national study that has analyzed more than 18,000 genes, including 5,000 previously unmapped genes, from breast and colorectal tumors.

Physicians at UT Southwestern Medical Center are the first in Texas to use a new technique in which a small radioactive pellet, or “seed”, is implanted into a mass or suspicious lesion in the breast to pinpoint its exact location for surgical removal.

Cancer epidemiologists at the University at Buffalo have identified specific genes that are most likely to become cancer promoters when exposed to a process called DNA promoter hypermethylation.

Research teams at Yale University and the University of Rhode Island have demonstrated a new way to target and potentially treat tumors using a short piece of protein that acts like a nanosyringe to deliver "tags" or therapy to cells, according to a report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Researchers have identified loss of Fiblin-2 as a marker of breast cancer progression since the protein is expressed by normal breast cells but lost in breast cancer cell lines and invasive breast tumors. As further confirmation of Fibulin-2's anti-invasion effect, reintroduction of the protein into Fibulin-2-negative breast cancer cells resulted in decreased cell migration and invasion in vitro.

Studies of human tumor cells implanted in mice have shown that the abnormal activation of four genes drives the spread of breast cancer to the lungs. The new studies by Howard Hughes Medical Institute researchers reveal that the aberrant genes work together to promote the growth of primary breast tumors.