Researchers develop new model of inflammatory breast cancer

Researchers have developed a new cell and animal model of inflammatory breast cancer (IBC), a very aggressive form of the disease that is diagnosed more frequently in younger women compared with other types of breast cancer. The model recapitulates the aggressive metastasis and cancer stem cell activity associated with poor outcomes in patients with IBC. The researchers developed this model by collecting fluid from a 49-year-old patient whose cells lacked the protein HER2/neu, in addition to receptors for estrogen and progesterone, to create the new cell line FC-IBC02. About 15 percent of breast cancer patients share these features and, as a result, they do not respond to hormonal therapies and certain medications that target these proteins. They also injected the cells into the mammary fat pad of mice and found that the tumor spheroids rapidly developed into tumors and spread to the lungs.