Search

Introduction: Obesity and breast cancer are two major pathologies closely associated with increasing incidence and mortality rates, especially amongst women. The association between both diseases have been thoroughly discussed but much is still to uncover. Aim: The aim of this study is to analyse tumour characteristics and clinical outcomes of overweight and obese women to disclosure potential associations and better understand the impact of obesity in breast cancer. Materials and methods: Clinicopathological information of 2246 women were extracted from the institutional database of comprehensive cancer centre in Portugal diagnosed between 2012 and 2016. Women were stratified according to body mass index as normal, overweight, and obese. Patients' demographic information and tumour features (age, family history, topographic localization, laterality, histological type, and receptor status) were taken as independent variables and overall survival, tumour stage, differentiation grade and bilaterality were considered clinical outcomes. Results: The main results reveal that overweight and obesity are predominantly associated with worse outcomes in breast cancer patients. Obese patients present larger (p-value: 0.002; OR 1.422; 95% CI 1.134–1.783) and more poorly differentiated tumours (p-value: 0.002; OR 1.480; 95% CI 1.154–1.898) and tend to have lower overall survival although without statistical significance (p-value: 0.117; OR 1.309; 95% CI 0.934–1.833). Overweighted women are more likely to have bilateral breast cancer (p-value: 0.017; OR 3.076; 95% CI 1.225–7.722) than obese women. The results also reveal that overweight women present less distant metastasis (p-value: 0.024; OR 0.525; 95%CI 0.299–0.920). Topographic localization and laterality did not achieve statistical significance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Obesity and breast cancer are two major pathologies closely associated with increasing incidence and mortality rates, especially amongst women. The association between both diseases have been thoroughly discussed but much is still to uncover. Aim: The aim of this study is to analyse tumour characteristics and clinical outcomes of overweight and obese women to disclosure potential associations and better understand the impact of obesity in breast cancer. Materials and methods: Clinicopathological information of 2246 women were extracted from the institutional database of comprehensive cancer centre in Portugal diagnosed between 2012 and 2016. Women were stratified according to body mass index as normal, overweight, and obese. Patients' demographic information and tumour features (age, family history, topographic localization, laterality, histological type, and receptor status) were taken as independent variables and overall survival, tumour stage, differentiation grade and bilaterality were considered clinical outcomes. Results: The main results reveal that overweight and obesity are predominantly associated with worse outcomes in breast cancer patients. Obese patients present larger (p-value: 0.002; OR 1.422; 95% CI 1.134–1.783) and more poorly differentiated tumours (p-value: 0.002; OR 1.480; 95% CI 1.154–1.898) and tend to have lower overall survival although without statistical significance (p-value: 0.117; OR 1.309; 95% CI 0.934–1.833). Overweighted women are more likely to have bilateral breast cancer (p-value: 0.017; OR 3.076; 95% CI 1.225–7.722) than obese women. The results also reveal that overweight women present less distant metastasis (p-value: 0.024; OR 0.525; 95%CI 0.299–0.920). Topographic localization and laterality did not achieve statistical significance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Limiting tumor invasion to the surrounding healthy tissues has proven to be clinically relevant for anticancer treatment options. We have demonstrated that, within a solid tumor, it is possible to achieve such a goal with the same nanoparticle by intracellular and triggered targeted drug delivery to more than one cell population. We have identified the nucleolin receptor in endothelial and cancer cells in tissue samples from breast cancer patients, which enabled the design of a F3-peptide-targeted sterically stabilized pH-sensitive liposome. The clinical potential of such strategy was demonstrated by the successful specific cellular association by breast cancer cells harvested from tumors of patients submitted to mastectomy. In vitro, the nanoparticle targeted the nucleolin receptor on a cell and ligand-specific manner and improved cytotoxicity of doxorubicin (used as a model drug) towards breast cancer and endothelial cells by 177- and 162-fold, respectively, relative to the commercially available non-targeted non-pH-sensitive liposomes. Moreover, active accumulation of F3-targeted pH-sensitive liposomes into human orthotopic tumors, implanted in the mammary fat pad of nude mice, was registered for a time point as short as 4 h, reaching 48% of the injected dose/g of tissue. Twenty-four hours post-injection the accumulation of the dual-targeted pH-sensitive nanoparticle in the tumor tissue was 33-fold higher than the non-targeted non-pH-sensitive counterpart. In mice treated with the developed targeted nanoparticle significant decrease of the tumor viable rim area and microvascular density, as well as limited invasion to surrounding healthy tissues were observed (as opposed to other tested controls), which may increase the probability of tumors falling in the category of 'negative margins' with reduced risk of relapse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]