The co-existence of breast and ovarian cancers in the same individual should raise suspicion of a hereditary process. Patients with either BRCA1 or BRCA2 germ-line mutations have an average risk of 39% and 11% respectively of developing ovarian cancer by the age of 70; they have a risk of 35–85% of developing breast cancer in their lifetime. We report here unusual pathologic features in a BRCA2 germ-line mutation carrier recently diagnosed with synchronous breast and ovarian cancers, and summarize the findings in six other women who were diagnosed with ovarian cancer either simultaneously with the diagnosis of breast cancer or at varying times after the diagnosis. While in most instances this may be a coincidental occurrence in highly susceptible individuals, the patient we highlight raises the provocative hypothesis that at times breast cancer metastasizes to the ovaries of mutation carriers and stimulates the development of an ovarian cancer as well as other cancers. In addition, these ovarian cancers may have different mechanisms of metastases predisposing them to travel to unusual sites.
We investigated the relationship between the clinical outcome and the GSTM1 null/present, GSTT1 null/present, and GSTP1 IIe105Val polymorphisms in breast cancer patients with chemotherapy. A total of 420 consecutive breast cancer patients diagnosed between January 2010 and December 2011 were eligible for inclusion in our retrospective study. The designs of the assay and SNP genotyping of GSTM1 null/present, GSTT1 null/present, and GSTP1 IIe105Val were performed using the Sequenom MassARRAY platform. In the univariate analysis, patients who carried TT genotype and CT + TT genotype of GSTP1 IIe105Val showed a significant poorer tumor response to chemotherapy when compared with CC genotype (for TT genotype, adjusted OR = 0.44, 95 % CI = 0.22-0.89; for CT + TT genotype, adjusted OR = 0.59, 95 % CI = 0.39-0.92). By Cox multivariate analysis, TT genotype and CT + TT genotype were associated with increased risk of death from breast cancer, and the relationship was more obvious after being adjusted by potential confounding factors (for TT genotype, adjusted OR = 4.23, 95 % CI = 2.33-8.76; for CT + TT genotype, adjusted OR = 2.53, 95% CI = 1.60-4.03). Polymorphism of GSTP1 IIe105Val might affect the clinical outcome in breast cancer patients.
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