Gradient-Echo Spectroscopic Imaging Study of Saturated Fat and Breast Cancer

项目摘要 脂肪在乳腺癌发展和生长中的作用已经使用体重指数进行了广泛的研究， 一个衡量全身脂肪和饮食脂肪摄入量的流行病学研究。然而，在这方面， 由于以下原因，在个人层面上缺乏研究来评估乳腺脂肪本身在乳腺癌中的作用 缺乏一种非侵入性和快速的测量方法。由于乳腺纤维腺细胞被 乳腺脂肪细胞，乳腺脂肪的特性可能与乳腺癌有较强的关系 最近的研究表明，大多数乳腺癌是在交界处发展的， 纤维腺体组织和脂肪组织之间的联系然而，研究乳房脂肪的作用并不是小事，主要是 由于缺乏对重要特征足够敏感的非侵入性和快速测量方法， 乳房脂肪，如脂肪类型。 最近，我们开发了一种快速MRI方法，称为回波光谱成像（GSI）， 在临床乳腺MRI检查期间测量脂肪酸组成。GSI可以提供饱和脂肪和 不饱和脂肪在乳房脂肪组织不进行组织活检。我们的初步研究发现， 患有侵袭性乳腺癌（称为浸润性导管癌）的绝经后妇女， 乳腺脂肪组织中饱和脂肪的百分比显著高于绝经后妇女 只有良性病变 这项研究的首要目标是确定饱和脂肪酸在乳腺癌发展中的作用 和增长在这个提议中，我们计划使用GSI进行体内饱和脂肪的非侵入性测量， 接受诊断性乳腺MRI检查的绝经后女性的乳腺脂肪组织（目的1和2），或 MRI引导活检扫描（Aim 3）。我们的中心假设是：（i）乳腺饱和脂肪酸分数 由GSI测量的乳腺癌与乳腺中恶性病变的存在相关，以及（ii）乳腺癌 饱和脂肪酸分数与乳房脂肪组织中的炎症正相关， 增加脂肪细胞中雌激素的产生。 这项拟议中的研究将评估乳房饱和脂肪是否是乳腺癌的独立危险因素， 以及它是否能够为当前的临床诊断检查提供附加的诊断信息。此外，本发明还提供了一种方法， 所提出的乳房饱和脂肪的成像测量可用于评估任何干预的功效， 减少乳腺脂肪组织中与癌症相关的炎症，并研究脂肪 酸组合物在预防和临床治疗乳腺癌中的应用。

PROJECT SUMMARY The role of fat in breast cancer development and growth has been studied extensively using body mass index, a measure of whole body fatness, and dietary fat intake in a number of epidemiological studies. However, there is a paucity of studies, on an individual level, to assess the role of breast fat itself in breast cancer due to lack of a non-invasive and fast measurement method. Since breast fibroglandular cells are surrounded by breast fat cells, the characteristics of breast fat may have a stronger relationship with breast cancer development, as supported by recent studies showing that a majority of breast cancer develops at the interface between fibroglandular tissue and adipose tissue. However, it is not trivial to study the role of breast fat, mainly due to the lack of a non-invasive and fast measurement method sensitive enough to important features of breast fat, such as types of fat. Recently, we have developed a rapid MRI method, referred to as Gradient-echo Spectroscopic Imaging (GSI), to measure fatty acid composition during clinical breast MRI exams. GSI can provide map of saturated fat and unsaturated fats in the breast adipose tissue without performing tissue biopsy. Our pilot study found that the postmenopausal women with aggressive breast cancer, known as invasive ductal carcinoma, have a significantly higher percentage of saturated fat in their breast adipose tissue than the postmenopausal women with only benign lesions. The overarching goal of this study is to determine the role of saturated fatty acid in breast cancer development and growth. In this proposal, we plan to use GSI for non-invasive in vivo measurement of saturated fat in the breast adipose tissue of postmenopausal women who undergo diagnostic breast MRI exams (Aims 1 and 2) or MRI-guided biopsy scans (Aim 3). Our central hypotheses are that (i) the breast saturated fatty acid fraction measured by GSI is associated with the presence of malignant lesions in the breast and (ii) the breast saturated fatty acid fraction correlates positively with inflammation in the breast adipose tissue that may lead to increase in estrogen production in adipocytes. The proposed study will evaluate whether breast saturated fat is an independent risk factor for breast cancer, and whether it can provide additional diagnostic information to current clinical diagnostic exams. In addition, the proposed imaging measure of breast saturated fat can be used to assess the efficacy of any intervention to reduce cancer-related inflammation in the breast adipose tissue and to investigate the possible role of fatty acid composition in prevention and clinical management of breast cancer.