Detection of Breast Cancer Aggressiveness with Metabolomic Profiles

Elita DeFeo¹, Elena Brachtel, Yannick Berker, Nathalie Strittmatter, Julia Hein, Dennis Sgroi, Barbara Smith², Leo L. Cheng³

Diagnosis and prognosis of breast cancer is based on pathological evaluations that have been developed prior to the implementation of imaging based screening. Annual screenings have increased the number of patients with early stages of the disease, challenging the prognostic paradigms. Applying the HRMAS MRS technique, we can quantify individual metabolites from native tissue and correlate those metabolites with quantitative pathology measure from the same samples. In this study we seek to establish breast cancer metabolomic profiles that can improve the accuracy of breast cancer pathological evaluations and the assessment of patient outcome.