Two years ago, Dr. Karen Antman and the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center received a large grant from the Avon Products Foundation to fund research in the area of breast cancer. This grant supports a number of initiatives within the Cancer Center, all focused on furthering research and patient services in the area of breast cancer. These efforts were recently highlighted in a national conference that was held at Columbia on November 8, 2001. The conference brought together researchers from the ten cancer centers around the country that are funded by the Avon Products Foundation.

A major aspect of this Program is the provision of up to $50,000 in pilot funds for research projects; this is particularly directed towards young investigators. We would like to pay special tribute to some of these investigators whose research has focused in the area of cancer prevention and public health as it relates to breast cancer.

1999

Habibul Ahsan, M.D., M.Med.Sc., received funding for a proposal entitled, "Proposal to Identify New Candidate and Modifier Genes in Breast Cancer." He is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Epidemiology in the Mailman School of Public Health, with a specific interest in the molecular/genetic epidemiology of breast cancer. As an Avon Scholar, Dr. Ahsan's research has focused on understanding breast cancer etiology through studies of variations in novel candidate genes. In collaboration with the Columbia Genome Center, particularly Dr. Peisan Zhang, he conducted a systematic search of the genetic data bases to identify synonymous and non-synonymous single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in a set of candidate genes defined a priori that may play roles in various metabolic and hormonal pathways relevant to breast carcinogenesis.

In this Avon pilot study, Dr. Ahsan and his colleagues specifically pursued preparatory and pilot work to set up a study examining the association between variations in a specific candidate gene, the placental hCG gene (measured through the offspring's DNA) and breast cancer risk. Examination of this novel hypothesis may answer whether offspring's and father's hCG genotype may be predictive of breast cancer risk in mothers. The pilot work funded by Avon led to a larger scale proposal and award from the Department of Defense to undertake a full study to examine this hypothesis in families participating in the Metropolitan New York Breast Cancer Family Registry. In addition, Dr. Ahsan's novel hypothesis has recently been accepted for publication in the Lancet.

2000

Victor Grann, M.D., M.P.H., is conducting a study entitled "Preferences in Prevention and Screening Practices among Relatives and Friends of African American Women with Breast Cancer." Women of African and Hispanic descent are more likely to have breast cancer at a younger age, and stage-for-stage, have lower survival rates than women of European descent. Little is known about the association of race/ethnicity with risk factors, health-related quality of life, preferences for preventive measures and treatment, and health-seeking behavior. Under this pilot project, Dr. Grann and his colleagues have conducted preliminary studies to assess differences by race/ethnicity in the distribution of the major known risk factors of breast cancer, including the Gail model risk factors, among breast cancer patients, their first-degree relatives (FDRs) and friends. They have also begun to assess the relationship of race/ethnicity and risk group with preference ratings of preventive measures and with health-related behavior, and have recruited 266 subjects to date. Their preliminary data suggest that women of European descent may differ from others in the distribution of the Gail model risk factors and that, as a result, women of non-European descent may be inappropriately denied access to preventive treatment and to participation in prevention trials, despite their high breast cancer mortality.

Linda Vahdat, M.D., is conducting a study entitled, “Levels of IGF-1 and IGFBP-3 in African American Premenopausal Women Newly Diagnosed with African American Premenopausal Controls.” She and her collaborators have screened 1127 women and identified 53 premenopausal African American breast cancer patients diagnosed within the last year at Harlem Hospital Center and New-York Presbyterian Hospital by reviewing pathology records, operating room schedules and tumor registry sheets. They have also screened 1600 potential controls and identified over 300 potential African Amerian controls in a similar fashion. For this investigation, Dr. Vahdat and her colleagues have been recruiting and obtaining blood samples from these individuals in order to compare levels of these factors and to investigate their role in the etiology of this disease in African American women, and to subsequently explore its effect on survival outcome.

Stay tuned for research highlights from other Avon Project investigators in the next issue.