BRCA1/2 expression in breast tumours
One in nine women will develop breast cancer within their lifetime, equating to around 3,000 New Zealanders annually. read more
Neoadjuvant therapy is a treatment option increasingly used for patients with invasive breast cancer. This project aims to develop digital pathology algorithms for automatically deriving quantitative measurements of cellularity of residual tumours from post-treatment specimens which pathologists could use as accurate prognostic indicators to assess the efficiency of the treatment.
Breast Cancer is the uncontrolled growth of abnormal breast cells. Breast Cancer is not caused by a bacteria or a virus and is not contagious. Normally cells are created, grow and die in a controlled way. However, when abnormal changes occur in the genes which usually regulate this orderly process, normal gene function can be turned on or off. Damaged cells are then able to keep growing and dividing and a tumour is formed. A tumour in the breast can be benign (usually not life-threatening) or malignant (cancerous). Although a benign tumour may cause problems as it grows, it does not spread to other parts of the body. On the other hand, a malignant tumour does have the potential to grow and spread to form secondary tumours. When this happens, it’s called advance, metastatic or secondary breast cancer.