Unlocking Early Detection: AI-Powered Breast Cancer Assay in Development
The developed assay will utilize AI to generate an oncoindicative score, providing a precise measure of cancer risk and progression. This approach leverages circulating RNA markers as non-invasive tools for early detection and monitoring of invasive breast carcinoma, enabling early intervention and personalized treatment strategies.
Breast cancer is a leading malignancy both in Hungary and worldwide, and early detection significantly improves survival rates. Most patients present with advanced disease partly because current screening methods are suboptimal due to limited accessibility, invasiveness, and low specificity. While screening participation reduces breast cancer mortality, high false-positive rates lead to unnecessary biopsies and overtreatment. Tumors detected through screening often have favorable prognostic factors, such as smaller size and lack of lymph node involvement, requiring less radical surgery and chemotherapy.
Non-invasive detection of cancer through blood tests is a research priority, but current technologies struggle with the instability of tumor-derived nucleic acids. Circulating RNAs (circRNAs) are highly stable in bodily fluids, making them ideal non-invasive biomarkers, particularly for early tumorigenesis events. Angiogenesis, which promotes tumor growth and spread, develops early in breast cancer, even in the in situ stage, and platelets play a role in regulating angiogenesis within the tumor microenvironment. Analyzing circRNA in platelets shows promise for identifying early breast cancer invasion from peripheral blood, complementing multi-gene tests that assess the utility of adjuvant chemotherapy.
