( eening guidelines in this country are b...)Study reveals dramatic difference between breast cancers in US and Africa

eening guidelines in this country are based on studies that primarily looked at Caucasians, said Olopade. "We need to reconsider how to screen for a disease that is less common but starts sooner and moves faster. Obviously an annual mammogram beginning at 50 is not the best route to early detection in African women, who get the disease and die from it in their 40s, and it also needs to be adjusted in African Americans and high-risk women in all racial/ethnic groups."

Olopade is one of four principal investigators in a large-scale, multi-year, cross-disciplinary effort based at the University of Chicago to sort out the genetic and environmental factors that contribute to breast cancer. The study will look at the genes, lifestyle, socioeconomic status, and social interactions of women in the United States and Africa and their relationship to breast cancer.

She combines expertise in cancer risk and genetics with a close African connection. Olopade grew up in Nigeria, retains close ties with cancer specialists there and returns frequently to teach, for research -- and to visit. She worked with Nigerian researcher Francis Ikpatt, who is completing a three-year post-doctoral fellowship in Olopade's laboratory, to gather the tumor samples from three regions of Nigeria, and later from Senegal. The gene expression analysis was performed in Olopade's laboratory at the University of Chicago.

"We now have the world's largest collection of tumor samples from Africa," said Olopade. "Francis did most of that over the course of one year. That should give you some idea of how neglected this continent is by cancer researchers."

The Breast Cancer Research Foundation and the National Women's Cancer Research Alliance funded the study, which was presented April 18, 2005, at the 96th annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research.

Also contributing were Jinhua Xu and Audrey Kramtsov from Chicago; Roland Ndoma-Egba of the University o
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Source:University of Chicago Medical Center

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