Bay Biosciences provides high-quality, fresh frozen samples, matched fresh frozen sera (serum), plasma, and peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) bio-fluids from patients diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer (TNBC).
The sera (serum), plasma and PBMC biofluid specimens are processed from triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) patient’s peripheral whole-blood using customized collection and processing protocols.
Fresh frozen tissue and matched biofluid samples are collected from unique patients diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer (TNBC).
Bio-samples are provided to a valued pharmaceutical customer for research, diagnostics, discovery and drug development.
Triple Negative Breast Cancer (TNBC) Overview
Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is a cancer that that does not have any of the receptors that are commonly found in breast cancer. TNBC tests negative for estrogen receptors (ER), progesterone receptors (PR), and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 or HER2 protein.
This makes it difficult to treat with hormone medication as many of the drugs used for breast cancer treatment target these receptors.
As a result, triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) more likely to grow and spread quicker than other forms of breast cancer.
It also can make treatment more difficult, leaving the patient to undergo chemotherapy or clinical trials.
According to the American cancer society (ACS) about 10-15% of all breast cancers are triple-negative breast cancers. For researchers, there is intense interest in discovering new medications that can treat TNBC breast cancer.
Progesterone receptor-positive and estrogen receptor-positive breast cancers are the most common. Progesterone and estrogen are the two main sex hormones in women.
There are hormonal therapies available that can help treat and prevent recurrence for people who develop one of these types. In fact, many breast cancers are both estrogen- and progesterone-positive. If one type of hormone therapy does not work, another therapy often has a positive outcome.
TNBC is different from the more common types of breast cancer. It is harder to treat and much more aggressive.
Because it is aggressive and rare, fewer treatment options are available. It also tends to have a higher rate of recurrence.
Studies are investigating whether certain medications can interfere with the processes that cause triple-negative breast cancer to grow.
Triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) tend to be more common in women younger than age 40 or who have a BRCA1 mutation.
Triple Negative Breast Cancer (TNBC) Features
- TNBC is considered to be more aggressive and have a poorer prognosis than other types of breast cancer, mainly because there are fewer targeted medicines that treat triple-negative breast cancer.
- Studies have shown that triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) is more likely to spread (metastasize) beyond the breast into other distant organs and more likely to recur (come back) after treatment.
- These types of breast cancer’s (TNBC) tends to be higher grade than other types of breast cancers.
- The higher the grade, the less the cancer cells resemble normal, healthy breast cells in their appearance and growth patterns. On a scale of 1 to 3, triple-negative breast cancer often is grade-3.
- Usually TNBC’s are a cell type called Basal-like which means that the cells resemble the basal cells that line the breast ducts.
- Basal-like cancers tend to be more aggressive, higher grade cancers, just like triple-negative breast cancers. Most but not all basal-like breast cancers are triple negative, and most but not all triple negative breast cancer’s (TNBC) are basal-like.
Causes of Triple Negative Breast Cancer (TNBC)
Researchers don’t know what causes TNBC, but they think BRCA1 genetic mutation might play a part. The BRCA1 gene is meant to prevent cancer. When it mutates, however, the gene reverses course and makes your cells more vulnerable to cancer.
Following are are some of the factors that support BRCA1 genetic mutation might play a part in developing TNBC:
- Everyone inherits one set of BRCA1 genes from each of their parents.
- When these genes function properly, they help prevent the development of cancer.
- A BRCA1 gene mutation is believed to make the body’s cells susceptible to further genetic alterations that can lead to certain types of cancer, including various forms of breast and ovarian cancer.
- Most breast cancers that are caused by a damaged BRCA1 gene are triple negative.
Common Causes of Triple Negative Breast Cancer (TNBC)
There are several risk factors and genetic causes that may increase a woman’s chance of having triple-negative breast cancer compared to other types of breast cancer
Following are some of the common causes and risk factors for triple-negative breast cancer. These are similar to the risk factors of all types of breast cancer:
- Age: Most breast cancer diagnoses occur in women over the age of 60. but with TNBC this may appear earlier, in women 50 years old and younger.
- Weight: Women who are overweight or obese have a higher risk of developing triple negative breast cancer’s (TNBC).
- Ethnicity: African Americans and Hispanics are more prone to developing triple-negative breast cancer than Caucasians or Asians.
- Genetics: Mutations such as BRCA1 gene.
- Having a family history of breast cancer.
Triple Negative Breast Cancer (TNBC) Genetics
One of the leading causes of triple-negative is a woman’s genetic makeup, specifically the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes, which are genes that are supposed to produce tumor suppressant proteins in the body.
In the case of triple-negative breast cancer, 10% to 15% of Caucasians with triple-negative breast cancer have a BRCA1 gene mutation, while 35% of African Americans with triple-negative breast cancer have a BRCA1 gene mutation.
For a while the BRCA1 gene was the only gene known for increasing the risk of triple-negative breast cancer.
But with new research published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute discovered five genes, BRCA1, BRCA2, BARD1, PALB2, RAD51D.
These genes, if defected can increase their risk of getting any type of breast cancer by 20% as well as elevating the chances that their breast cancer diagnosis be triple negative breast cancer’s (TNBC).
Signs and Symptoms of Triple Negative Breast Cancer (TNBC)
Triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) have the same sign and symptoms as other common types of breast cancer. The most common symptom of breast cancer is a new lump or mass.
A painless, hard mass that has irregular edges is more likely to be cancer, but breast cancers can be tender, soft, or round. They can even be painful.
For this reason, it’s important to have any new breast mass, lump, or breast change checked by an experienced health care professional.
Following are some of the signs and symptoms of breast cancer:
- A lump or a mass
- Breast skin that is red, flaky, dry and thick
- Changes in the skin of the breast
- Discharge (liquid) from the nipple
- Pain in the breast or nipple
- Lumps or masses felt in the armpit
- Retracted nipple (turned inwards)
- Swelling in the breast
- Swollen lymph nodes
Risk Factors of Triple Negative Breast Cancer (TNBC)
Following are the most common lifestyle risk factors of TNBC:
- A lack of physical activity.
- Drinking excess amounts of alcohol.
- Dense breast tissue
- Family history of breast cancer
- Obesity
- Radiation exposure
- Smoking
- Taking hormones, whether it be in the form of birth control or hormone replacement therapy.
- Your weight after menopause.
Diagnosis of Triple Negative Breast Cancer (TNBC)
Once a breast cancer is detected and the diagnosis has been made using imaging tests and biopsy, the cancer cells are checked for certain proteins.
If the cells do not have estrogen or progesterone receptors (ER or PR), and also do not make any or too much of the HER2 protein, the cancer is considered to be triple negative breast cancer (TNBC).
Treatment of Triple Negative Breast Cancer (TNBC)
Triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) patients usually first need to have the lump removed (a lumpectomy) or the entire breast removed (a mastectomy).
After that they have chemotherapy treatments to target any cancer cells that can’t be seen—cells remaining in the breast or that may have spread into other parts of the body. Sometimes doctors recommend chemotherapy before the surgical procedure to shrink the cancer.
Surgery
Surgical options include the partial lumpectomy or full mastectomy removal of one or both of the breasts.
Choosing to undergo these types of surgery depends on many factors, such as the size of the tumor, the patient’s family history, whether they have any genetic mutations, and their personal preference.
Lumpectomy
With lumpectomy, a surgeon removes the lump from the breast. They also removes nearby lymph nodes (the little oval-shaped organs that are part of your immune system) to see if the cancer has spread. The surgery takes an hour or two. Most women spend the day at the hospital and usually do not need to stay overnight.
Mastectomy
For a mastectomy, your surgeon removes the breast and nearby lymph nodes to see if the cancer has spread. Some women choose to have breast reconstruction during the same surgery.
Radiation Therapy
Radiation therapy destroys cancer cells with high-energy rays, it targets and kills the cancer cells to prevent their growth and spread. Doctors commonly administer radiation therapy to patients after breast cancer surgery, most commonly after lumpectomy.
High-energy radiation is used to damage cancer cells DNA and destroy their ability to divide and grow.
According to the American Cancer Society (ACS), over 50% of the cancer patients receive radiation therapy as part of their cancer treatment. Doctors use radiation therapy to treat just about every type of cancer.
Chemotherapy
Cells from the cancerous lump may have spread somewhere else in the patients body. The goal of chemotherapy is to kill those cancer cells wherever they may be. Chemotherapy lowers the chance that the cancer will grow or come back.
Some study suggests that chemotherapy may be the most effective treatment option for triple-negative breast cancer. During chemotherapy, an individual receives a combination of drugs that destroy breast cancer cells.
Doctors typically recommend chemotherapy for the treatment of triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) larger than 0.5 cm. Unlike cancers that express hormone receptors (ER and PR) or HER2, anti-hormonal therapy or HER2-targeted therapy is not effective. Medical professionals administer chemotherapy treatments by intravenous injection or by mouth.
Following are the types of chemotherapy used for the treatment of triple negative breast cancer (TNBC):
- Adjuvant chemotherapy is given after surgery to remove cancer or after mastectomy.
- Chemotherapy for advanced cancer: If cancer has metastasized to distant sites in the body, chemotherapy can be used for treatment.
- Neoadjuvant chemotherapy is chemotherapy given before surgery.
- Combination therapy: Sometime immunotherapy medicines in combination with the chemotherapy medicines, are also used for the treatment of metastatic triple-negative breast cancer.
Bay Biosciences is a global leader in providing researchers with high quality, clinical grade, fully characterized human tissue samples, bio-specimens and human bio-fluid collections.
Samples available are cancer (tumor) tissue, cancer serum, cancer plasma cancer PBMC and human tissue samples from most other therapeutic areas and diseases.
Bay Biosciences maintains and manages its own bio-repository, human tissue bank (biobank) consisting of thousands of diseased samples (specimens) and from normal healthy donors available in all formats and types.
Our biobank procures and stores fully consented, deidentified and institutional review boards (IRB) approved human tissue samples and matched controls.
All our human tissue collections, human specimens and human bio-fluids are provided with detailed samples associated patient’s clinical data.
This critical patient’s clinical data includes information relating to their past and current disease, treatment history, lifestyle choices, biomarkers and genetic information.
Patient’s data is extremely valuable for researchers and is used to help identify new effective treatments (drug discovery & development) in oncology, other therapeutic areas and diseases.
Bay Biosciences banks wide variety of human tissue samples and biological samples including cryogenically preserved at – 80°C.
Including fresh frozen tissue samples, tumor tissue samples, FFPE’s, tissue slides, with matching human bio-fluids, whole blood and blood derived products such as serum, plasma and PBMC’s.
Bay Biosciences is a global leader in collecting and providing human tissue samples according to the researchers specified requirements and customized, tailor-made collection protocols.
Please contact us anytime to discuss your special research projects and customized human tissue sample requirements.
Bay Biosciences provides human tissue samples (human specimens) from diseased and normal healthy donors which includes:
- Peripheral whole-blood,
- Amniotic fluid
- Bronchoalveolar lavage fluid (BAL)
- Sputum
- Pleural effusion
- Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF)
- Serum (sera)
- Plasma
- Peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC’s)
- Saliva
- Buffy coat
- Urine
- Stool samples
- Aqueous humor
- Vitreous humor
- Kidney stones (renal calculi)
- Other bodily fluids from most diseases including cancer.
We can also procure most human bio-specimens and can-do special collections and requests of human samples that are difficult to find. All our human tissue samples are procured through IRB approved clinical protocols and procedures.
In addition to the standard processing protocols Bay Biosciences can also provide human plasma, serum, PBMC bio-fluid samples using custom processing protocols, you can buy donor specific sample collections in higher volumes and specified sample aliquots from us.
Bay Biosciences also provides human samples from normal healthy donors, volunteers, for controls and clinical research, contact us Now.
日本のお客様は、ベイバイオサイエンスジャパンBay Biosciences Japanまたはhttp://baybiosciences-jp.com/contact/までご連絡ください。