Dr. Wapnir Receives Smart Foundation Funding for Breast Cancer Research

Dr. Irene Wapnir has received funding from the Smart Foundation for her research project: “Early and Late Hormone-positive Ipsilateral Breast Tumor Recurrences’ Genomic Signatures.”

“Our study focuses on trying to characterize the types of tumors that recur locally after lumpectomy or breast conserving surgery,” said Wapnir. “Some of these recurrences appear decades later, so we wonder: are these new cancers that develop or cancer cells that remained dormant in the area and survived all the prior treatments?”

About half of these recurrences are highly-associated with the presence of metastasis in tissues and organs outside the breast. Genomic signatures have defined sub-groups of tumors with aggressive and less aggressive behaviors.

“One of the goals of our research is to correlate these signatures to early or late recurrences. In fact, we might use the findings to classify an in-breast recurrence as early or late,” said Wapnir.

Wapnir will be working closely with Dr. Colin Bergstrom, one of the fellows in the Breast Program who has worked with Dr. Jennifer Caswell and Dr. Christina Curtis on these genomic signatures.

Much of Wapnir’s national clinical trials work has been on studying the longterm outcomes of patient in NSABP trials who experienced locoregional recurrences. She was also chair of Chemotherapy as Adjuvant for Locally Recurrent breast cancer (CALOR) trial, which investigated the effectiveness of chemotherapy after local therapy for isolated locoregional recurrence.

Additionally, the Williams Foundation is continuing to support Dr. Wapnir’s project: Investigator Initiated Randomized Trial of Neoadjuvant partial breast radiation therapy for ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS).

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