Practical Practitioner

New saliva test can detect breast cancer

FEBRUARY 22, 2008 – Scientists have discovered a new way of testing for breast cancer that could make the mammogram a thing of the past. The test is safer and potentially far more accurate than current mammograms. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to spit in a tube rather than have our breast smashed?

U.S. scientists are developing a breast cancer screening test that checks a woman’s saliva for evidence of the disease. They say they’ve identified 49 proteins in saliva that can actually distinguish healthy women from those with benign breast tumors and those with malignant breast tumors.

Breast cancer triggers a change in the type and amount of proteins in the secretions from the salivary glands. When the researchers tested a group of 30 women – 10 healthy, 10 with benign tumors, and 10 with malignant tumors – the protein patterns were found to be different in all three groups.

If this is true, it would give an alternative to the current method of breast cancer screening, the mammogram. While the mammogram is the standard of care, the question remains whether the compression involved with the mammogram could be harming some women?

Reportedly, severe compression of the breast can lead to microscopic tissue ruptures – even in the tissue of the tumor. This tear can actually create a “leak” in the tumor, which allows the malignancy to spread and cause an acceleration of the cancer—and an earlier death.

Breast lumps should be handled with a great degree of care, because handling them roughly could cause such a rupture. Most women who have experienced a mammogram know that it squashes the breast pancake-flat until it hurts.

Of course, the researchers say that more tests need to be done before a saliva screening test based on these findings can become common and widely available. It may take the FDA years to approve such a test.

This simple, affordable saliva test would surely be a breakthrough to the early diagnosis of breast cancer. Women could start screening in their 30’s, an age considered too young for the standard screening mammogram. In an age where early detection is the key to survival in the war against breast cancer, this simple, inexpensive lab test could give women the edge they’ve been waiting for.

– Current breast cancer therapies are not working

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Pamela Egan, FNP-C, CDE is a board certified Adult & Family Nurse Practitioner, Certified Diabetes Educator & Clinical Specialist in Mental Health. She practices in Women’s Health with Kathy Posey, MD & can be reached at 985-867-1700 or www.pamelaegan.com.

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