Fox Chase researchers identify risk factors for the spread of breast cancer to lymph nodes

Tuesday, November 2, 2010 - 09:30 in Health & Medicine

Breast cancer, one of the most prevalent cancers in women, afflicts an additional 200,000 women each year and causes about 40,000 deaths annually. The disease often extends to neighboring lymph nodes, in part, through lymphovascular invasion (LVI) -- a process in which cancer cells invade blood vessels or the lymphatic system -- and can often translate into a poor prognosis for patients. Some scientists argue that evidence of LVI does not necessarily mean that the disease will recur in the lymph nodes after radiation to the breast alone, but research from Fox Chase Cancer Center now shows that the appearance of LVI in the breast tissue does in fact predict recurrence of breast in the regional lymph nodes.

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