Metastatic breast cancer causes more than half breast cancer deaths
Two tents in the shape of breasts give ‘body’ to an initiative in Lisbon that from today until Saturday is encouraging blood donation for scientific research into metastatic breast cancer.
The initiative has been organised by the Gulbenkian Institute of Molecular Medicine, formed from the recent merger of the Gulbenkian Institute of Science and the Institute of Molecular Medicine.
In what is the second initiative of its kind – the first was in 2023 – ‘Breast Week’ aims to raise awareness of breast cancer, which on average affects one in eight women in Portugal.
This year focus is on metastatic breast cancer which organisers explain is underdiagnosed and causes more than half the number of breast cancer deaths.
‘Almost total lack of diagnosis’
Metastatic breast cancer occurs when the primary tumour in the breast migrates to other organs, such as the bones, lungs, liver and brain.
“We are concerned about the difficulty, the almost total lack of diagnosis of metastatic cancer,” researcher Sérgio Dias tells Lusa.
In the tents set up in Alameda da Universidade, in front of the University of Lisbon’s rectory building, anyone wishing to respond to the call for donations can give blood in the morning, from 10am, until Saturday.
Samples collected will be sent to the Lisbon Academic Medical Centre’s biobank – a repository of biological samples voluntarily donated by patients and healthy people, to help research by way of control groups.
Scientists try to identify biomarkers of disease
In the biobank there are samples of breast tumours that scientists are studying in order to identify biomarkers of the disease – namely its progression and metastasis, and to develop functional and personalised tests that will enable early diagnosis and speed up the most appropriate treatment.
In the laboratory that Sérgio Dias coordinates, scientists are trying to understand why certain breast tumours have the potential to form metastases. They already have ‘some suspicions’, he says, but these need to be refined in order to obtain reliable biomarkers for testing.
The laboratory’s goal is to increase early diagnosis of metastatic breast cancer by 2030.
Source: LUSA
