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REVIEW article

Front. Oncol.
Sec. Breast Cancer
Volume 14 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fonc.2024.1398196
This article is part of the Research Topic Liquid-biopsy-guided biomarker and drug discovery View all 5 articles

Status of breast cancer detection in young women and potential of liquid biopsy

Provisionally accepted
Maya Stibbards-Lyle Maya Stibbards-Lyle 1Julia Malinovska Julia Malinovska 1Seleem Badawy Seleem Badawy 1Pepper Schedin Pepper Schedin 2Kristina D. Rinker Kristina D. Rinker 1*
  • 1 University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada
  • 2 Oregon Health and Science University, Portland, Oregon, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Young onset breast cancer (YOBC) is an increasing demographic with unique biology, limited screening, and poor outcomes. Further, women with postpartum breast cancers (PPBCs), those occurring up to 10 years after childbirth, have worse outcomes than other young breast cancer patients matched for tumor stage and subtype. Early-stage detection of YOBC is critical for improving outcomes. However, most young women (under 45) do not meet current age guidelines for routine mammographic screening and are thus an underserved population. Other challenges to early detection in this population include reduced performance of standard of care mammography and reduced awareness. Women often face significant barriers in accessing health care during the postpartum period and disadvantaged communities face compounding barriers due to systemic health care inequities. Blood tests and liquid biopsies targeting early detection may provide an attractive option to help address these challenges. Test development in this area includes understanding of the unique biology involved in YOBC and in particular PPBCs that tend to be more aggressive and deadly.In this review, we will present the status of breast cancer screening and detection in young women, provide a summary of some unique biological features of YOBC, and discuss the potential for blood tests and liquid biopsy platforms to address current shortcomings in timely, equitable detection.

    Keywords: breast cancer, Young women, Postpartum, involution, liquid biopsy, Molecular diagnostics, Early detection

    Received: 11 Mar 2024; Accepted: 01 May 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Stibbards-Lyle, Malinovska, Badawy, Schedin and Rinker. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Kristina D. Rinker, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.