Sporadic breast cancers start with ineffective DNA repair systems, researchers find

Breast cancers that arise sporadically, rather than through inheritance of certain genes, likely start with defects of DNA repair mechanisms that allow environmentally triggered mutations to accumulate, according to researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Magee-Womens Hospital of UPMC and the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute. The findings, reported this week in the early online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, indicate that potent chemotherapy drugs that target DNA in later-stage cancers could be an effective way to treat the earliest of breast tumors.

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