Retrospective evaluation of serum RAS related nuclear protein (RAN) as a novel, predictive metastasis biomarker for breast cancer

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An estimated 1.7 million new cases of breast cancer (BC) are diagnosed globally each year and in developed countries around 20-30% of patients will develop metastasis within 10 years, representing considerable disease burden. Metastasis is the spread of BC to other parts of the body and is the most common cause of death of BC sufferers. Currently, it is not possible to reliably predict whether early BC will spread. The problem is that there are no reliable diagnostic tests to predict at an early stage those patients at high risk of developing metastasis. Although metastatic BC cannot be cured this does not mean it cannot be treated. Treatment focuses on length and quality of life. The outcomes of the project will be enable metastatic risk in BC to be reliably predicted and patients stratified into low- and high-risk groups, enabling clinicians to plan at a very early stage a cost effective therapeutic approach for the patient that will improve their quality of life. In addition patients initially with a low risk of metastasis can be readily monitored to identify changes in their predicted risk. Our innovative approach is to develop an easy to use and affordable diagnostic kit that can quantify the level of a novel biomarker called Ran protein in blood samples. Ran protein is overexpressed in cancer cell lines and tumour tissues compared with normal counterparts and recent research has shown that Ran protein overexpression plays a role in the metastatic development of BC.