More younger women being diagnosed with aggressive breast cancer

There is a set back in the fight against breast cancer. More young women are getting advanced, deadly forms of cancer.

When Sue Ellen Jimenez of Cranston found a lump back in 2011, she admits she didn't take it very seriously. "You just think you have cystic breasts or the lump with just go away, " says Jimenez.

But after a year, that lump got bigger. At the age of just 31, she was diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer. Sue Ellen didn't have a family history of it. "I never thought in a million years id be sitting here talking about this, " says Jimenez.

"I was diagnosed in 2009 at 33 years old." Neither did Mandy Zito of Exeter. She's been cancer free for four years, but continues to work at the Gloria Gemma Foundation in Pawtucket. She says she's noticed a huge difference of who's walking through the doors. "I've definitely seen a rise in younger women, " says Zito.

So many in fact, they put together a calendarhHighlighting the epidemic here in Rhode Island. Everyone under the age of 40. One of the youngest survivors just 22 years old. "You're not getting screening at this age, you are relying on self breast exams, " says Zito.

Researchers and doctors aren't exactly sure why so many younger women are being diagnosed, but Mandy has an idea. "Women are getting their periods younger and are having children later so they are getting a hormonal surge," adds Zito

Scientists at Weill Cornell Medical College have discovered the molecular switch that allows aggressive triple negative breast cancer cells to grow the amoeba-like protrusions they need to crawl away from a primary tumor and metastasize throughout the body. Their findings, published in Cancer Cell, suggest a novel approach for developing agents to treat cancer once it has spread.

"Metastasis can be lethal, and our findings point to potential targeted treatments to stop the spread of this aggressive breast cancer," says the study's senior investigator, Dr. Vivek Mittal, an associate professor of cell and developmental biology and director of the Lehman Brothers Lung Cancer Laboratory at Weill Cornell Medical College.

According to researchers, if such agents were developed, they would perhaps be the first to specifically treat cancer metastasis, importantly in patients whose tumors have already spread. They would also be among the first designed to restore the function of a microRNA (miRNA), a small, non-coding RNA that regulates gene expression, which is crucial to cancer spread. While distinct miRNA "signatures" have been found for many tumor types, including different breast cancers, their specific roles in later steps of cancer metastasis has been unclear, Dr. Mittal says.

In the study, researchers set out to identify a miRNA that impacts metastasis without affecting primary tumor growth, as well as address its underlying molecular mechanisms and therapeutic potential against metastatic breast cancer. They discovered that a miRNA known as miR-708 is inhibited in metastatic triple negative breast cancer. They found that miR-708 acts as a metastatic tumor inhibitor, and when its function is restored, the tumors do not spread or form lethal macrometastases.