At least 3% of breast tissue cells from healthy women contain chromosome abnormalities that are typically associated with breast cancer, according to a study published Nov. 20 in Nature.
Researchers from University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and Baylor College of Medicine, both based in Houston, analyzed breast tissue from 49 healthy women undergoing breast reduction surgery for the study.
Here are five takeaways from their findings:
- Aneuploidy occurs when there is a gain or loss of chromosomes in a cell.
- In the breast tissue samples, a median of 3.19% of the epithelial cells were aneuploid. More than 82.67% of those aneuploid cells had chromosomal changes commonly found in invasive breast cancers.
- More chromosomal changes were reported in the breast tissue cells of older women in the study.
- Aneuploid cells are rare and more research needs to be done to identify if and how these cells can become cancerous.
- "These findings pose a challenge and highlight the potential risk of identifying false positives, as the cells can mistakenly be confused with invasive breast cancer," according to a Nov. 20 news release from MD Anderson.