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On the trail of invasive cells in breast cancer

During breast-cancer progression, tumour cells that arise in the milk duct spread elsewhere in the breast. The origin of these invasive tumour cells is now revealed by an analysis of spatially defined single cells.
  1. Douglas S. Micalizzi

    1. Douglas S. Micalizzi is at Massachusetts General Hospital Center for Cancer Research, Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts 02129, USA.

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  2. Shyamala Maheswaran

    1. Shyamala Maheswaran is at Massachusetts General Hospital Center for Cancer Research, Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts 02129, USA.

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In the early-stage breast cancer called ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), a cluster of cancer cells arises in the milk duct and remains confined there. The recorded incidence of DCIS has risen since the late 1980s, probably due to an increase in its detection through more widespread breast-cancer screening1. Up to 40% of cases of DCIS progress to invasive ductal carcinoma (IDC), in which tumour cells invade other regions of the breast2–4. IDC requires clinical treatment. Moreover, because it is not possible to predict which people with DCIS are at risk of progressing to IDC, the standard treatment for patients who have DCIS is surgery, often followed by radiotherapy5. Therefore, understanding how DCIS progresses to IDC might enable the selective treatment of those at high risk of developing IDC. A paper in Cell by Casasent et al.6 reveals the origin of DCIS and its progression to IDC.

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Nature 554, 308-309 (2018)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-018-01634-w

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