Paper analysing bone marrow micrometastasis in breast cancer published in New England Journal of Medicine
The micrometastasis project at the Norwegian Radium Hospital was started about ten years ago, with support from the Norwegian Cancer Society. The aim was to investigate the presence of cancer cells in the bone marrow in patients with various cancer types, and to follow up patients with and without such spread, in order to analyse the significance of micrometastasis for the future outcome of the disease.
Researchers at the Norwegian Radium Hospital and several other hospitals in the Oslo region have followed up approximately 1000 breast cancer patients for about four years, who all had breast cancer in an early stage. Bjørn Naume has been the project manager. This Norwegian work is included in an international study, analysing data from 4703 breast cancer patients. The results were published in the Aug 25th issue of "New England Journal of Medicine".
In this paper, entitled "A pooled analysis of bone marrow micrometastasis in breast cancer", the researchers present strong evidence supporting the conclusion that the presence of bone marrow micrometastasis at the time of diagnosis of breast cancer is associated with a poor prognosis.
Link to abstract from the web page of New England Journal of Medicine (journal impact factor: 38.57)
Other Bjørn Naume papers