ArticleCancer discovery2023
Early-Stage Breast Cancer Detection in Breast Milk.
Article in Cancer discovery, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 30 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
30 citing papers in PubMed, 55 citations in OpenAlex.
- Advancing the applications of liquid biopsies in oncology.Nature reviews. Genetics · 2026Review
- EBCC-15 manifesto: Removing age-related barriers to improve equity in breast cancer care.Breast (Edinburgh, Scotland) · 2026Review
- Postpartum breast cancer as a distinct oncologic entity: linking physiological tissue remodelling to tumor biology and clinical translation.Breast cancer research : BCR · 2026Review
- Harmonizing definitions in liquid biopsy: A terminology framework by the international society of liquid biopsy.The journal of liquid biopsy · 2026Review
- Biological basis and clinical translation prospects of circulating cell-free DNA in precision management of breast cancer (Review).Oncology letters · 2026Review
- Harnessing genomics for early cancer detection, risk stratification and prevention.Nature genetics · 2026Review
- Liquid biopsy epigenetics: establishing a molecular profile based on cell-free DNA.Molecular oncology · 2026Review
- Suspected parental gonadal/gonadosomatic mosaicism for a TINF2 mutation in two sisters with dyskeratosis congenita.Frontiers in genetics · 2026Article
- Little women: the relevance and reliance on mouse models for mammary gland research and next steps for translation.Journal of mammary gland biology and neoplasia · 2025Review
- Circulating tumor DNA in patients with cancer: insights from clinical laboratory.Advances in laboratory medicine · 2025Review
- Article
- The assessment of breast cancer biomarkers in diagnosis, prognosis and treatment monitoring: integrated analysis.Journal of cancer research and clinical oncology · 2025Review
- Case Report WIN-MTB-2023001 WIN International Molecular Tumor Board A 62-year-old male with metastatic colorectal cancer with 5 prior lines of treatment.Oncotarget · 2025Article
- The Application of Circulating Tumour DNA (ctDNA) in the Diagnosis, Prognosis, and Treatment Monitoring of Gynaecological and Breast Cancers (Review).Diagnostics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Expanding screening through the use of liquid biopsy for early cancer detection.Communications medicine · 2025Article
- DNA methylation in breast cancer: early detection and biomarker discovery through current and emerging approaches.Journal of translational medicine · 2025Review
- Exosomes: from basic research to clinical diagnostic and therapeutic applications in cancer.Cellular oncology (Dordrecht, Netherlands) · 2025Review
- Challenges and Opportunities in Quantifying Bioactive Compounds in Human Breastmilk.Biomolecules · 2025Review
- Homologous recombination repair status in metastatic prostate cancer by next-generation sequencing and functional immunofluorescence.Cell reports. Medicine · 2025Article
- A scoping review of factors influencing the implementation of liquid biopsy for cancer care.Journal of experimental & clinical cancer research : CR · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
28 authors at 4 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Breast cancer occurring during pregnancy (PrBC) and postpartum (PPBC) is usually diagnosed at more advanced stages compared with other breast cancer, worsening its prognosis. PPBC is particularly aggressive, with increased metastatic risk and mortality. Thus, effective screening methods to detect early PrBC and PPBC are needed. We report for the first time that cell-free tumor DNA (ctDNA) is present in breast milk (BM) collected from patients with breast cancer. Analysis of ctDNA from BM detects tumor variants in 87% of the cases by droplet digital PCR, while variants remain undetected in 92% of matched plasma samples. Retrospective next-generation sequencing analysis in BM ctDNA recapitulates tumor variants, with an overall clinical sensitivity of 71.4% and specificity of 100%. In two cases, ctDNA was detectable in BM collected 18 and 6 months prior to standard diagnosis. Our results open up the potential use of BM as a new source for liquid biopsy for PPBC detection. SIGNIFICANCE: For the first time, we show that BM obtained from patients with breast cancer carries ctDNA, surpassing plasma-based liquid biopsy for detection and molecular profiling of early-stage breast cancer, even prior to diagnosis by image. See related commentary by Cunningham and Turner, p. 2125. This article is featured in Selected Articles from This Issue, p. 2109.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.