Mucin-like carcinoma associated antigen (MCA) at presentation with breast cancer

The value of metastatic screening in early primary breast cancer

Up to 25 per cent of patients presenting with "early" breast cancer subsequently develop distant metastases indicating that this group must have occult disseminated disease when initially evaluated. Routine pre-operative haematological and radiological investigation is recommended in order to identify these patients and alter their management accordingly. The aim of this study was to examine the outcome of a pre-operative metastatic screening programme in patients presenting with early breast cancer. Eighty-two patients underwent surgery for stage I-II breast cancer over a 5 yr period from 1990-1995. Before surgery all patients underwent screening tests for metastatic disease. These included a full blood count, liver function tests, chest x-ray, skeletal survey and abdominal ultrasound. Of the 82 patients, metastatic screening significantly altered management in only 1 patient who was found to have asymptomatic lymphangitis carcinomatosa on chest x-ray. The results of this study suggest that the number of patients restaged by screening for metastatic breast cancer may be small and questions the necessity for its routine use in the management of early primary breast cancer.

Treatment of Breast Cancer with Fibroblasts Transfected with DNA from Breast Cancer Cells

This investigation was based on the hypothesis that weakly immunogenic, breast cancer-associated Ags, the products of mutant or dysregulated genes in the malignant cells, will be expressed in a highly immunogenic form by semiallogeneic IL-2-secreting fibroblasts transfected with DNA from breast cancer cells. (Classic studies indicate that transfection of genomic DNA can stably alter both the genotype and the phenotype of the cells that take up the exogenous DNA.) To investigate this question, we transfected LM mouse fibroblasts (H-2k) modified to secrete IL-2 with genomic DNA from a breast adenocarcinoma that arose spontaneously in a C3H/He mouse (H-2k). To increase their nonspecific immunogenic properties, the fibroblasts were also modified before transfection to express allogeneic MHC determinants (H-2Kb). Afterward, the IL-2-secreting semiallogeneic cells were cotransfected with DNA from the spontaneous breast neoplasm, along with a plasmid (pHyg) conferring resistance to hygromycin. Pooled colonies of hygromycin-resistant cells were then tested in C3H/He mice for their immunotherapeutic properties against the growth of the breast neoplasm. The results indicated that tumor-bearing mice immunized with the transfected cells survived significantly longer than mice in various control groups. Similar beneficial effects were seen in C57BL/6 mice injected with a syngeneic breast carcinoma cell line (EO771) and semiallogeneic, IL-2-secreting fibroblasts transfected with DNA from EO771 cells. The immunity was mediated by CD8+ T cells since immunized mice depleted of CD8+ cells failed to resist tumor growth.