Research lead: A/Prof Therese Becker
Research area: Cancer
Team: Dr Tanzila Khan and breast cancer surgeons, oncologists and scientists at Western Sydney University

What was the health problem that led you to carry out your research?

Early cancer diagnosis enables more successful and less toxic therapy. It also
provides greater chance of cure. However, screening programs only exist for certain
cancers. Additionally, some early cancer screening programs are less accessible for
people living in rural or remote areas.

Describe the research achievement and its impact.

Our current focus is on the high-need area of diagnosing early breast cancer. We do this by defining liquid biopsy-based (blood) cancer biomarkers that clearly distinguish
women with cancer from healthy women. Breast cancer is an ideal choice to address our hypothesis as it is the most common female cancer and currently the most
common Australian cancer. The current screening method of mammographic or MRI imaging is suboptimal, and it is challenging to “see” tumours in women with high
density normal breast tissue. While mammography was initially proclaimed to have 90-95% sensitivity, reviews put it closer to 80% sensitivity overall, or less than 50% for
young women or women with naturally dense breasts.

We are currently recruiting women with early localised breast cancer. We compare the molecular make-up of their blood sample with that of healthy women. This will allow us to define molecular changes in simple blood samples that reliably differentiate early breast cancer patients from healthy women. It will enable us to design practical assays that can be moved into diagnostic settings to detect such changes.

To prove beyond doubt that we can add to breast imaging and avoid missing early breast cancer, we need to be able to test blood samples prior to a woman’s diagnosis
and confirm that our methods would have detected the cancer earlier. To do this, we are focusing on women at high risk of breast cancer (generally those with inherited
risk). We are building up a biobank of blood samples from these women, who have yearly check-ups and imaging.

How was the work unique or pioneering?

Better survival and quality of life will not only benefit patients and their immediate relatives but the entire community. Earlier, more successful therapy also alleviates
the long-term burden on the health system. Additionally, non-invasive liquid biopsies may allow better, early cancer testing access equity due to sample shipments, which
means the blood can travel instead of the patient.

What is the broader implication of the research?

Our cutting-edge strategy to increase molecular data derived from liquid biopsy has the potential to revolutionise liquid biopsy analysis and its clinical use. Liquid
biopsy-based early cancer detection will lead to a significant shift in the national and international research field. For patients and clinicians, it will be game-changing and
allow for faster access to treatment.

While the project currently focuses on breast cancer, the findings are transferrable to
other cancers, extending the potential for impact.