Special Issue "Surgery Induced Angiogenesis in Breast Cancer: An Inconvenient Truth?"

Guest Editor
Dr. Michael W. Retsky
¹ Visiting Scientist at Harvard School of Public Health, 677 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA 02115, USA
² Adjoint Professor, Universidad Autonoma de Nuevo Leon (UANL) Center for Research and Health Science Development in Monterrey, Mexico
Website: http://hms.harvard.edu/WhitePagesPublic.asp?task=showperson&id=EVQyYGBFPzc=&a=hms&r=1&kw=
E-Mail:
Interests: cancer research; electron beam technology

Dear Colleagues,

Bimodal relapse patterns in early stage breast cancer are observed in multiple databases. This is unexplainable with the long-accepted continuous growth model. In order to explain these data, it was proposed with the aid of computer simulations that micrometastatic tumor growth includes periods of temporary dormancy and furthermore, surgery to remove primary tumors kick-starts growth of dormant distant disease. Apparently over half of all relapses are accelerated by such means. Two previously unreported modes of relapse were proposed as the dominant paths leading to treatment failure in early stage breast cancer. Single dormant cells are induced into division by surgery, an effect that increases with primary size. Also angiogenesis is induced in dormant avascular micrometastases mainly for premenopausal patients with positive lymph nodes. This theory may provide new explanations for a wide variety of clinical breast cancer features that were previously thought to be unconnected. In addition to the relapse patterns, this is proposed to at least partly explain paradoxical mammography data for women age 40-49, that the benefit of adjuvant chemotherapy is most effective by far for premenopausal node positive patients, breast cancer in young women is often labeled “aggressive”, the overall heterogeneous nature of breast cancer, and the racial disparity in outcome. To present a forum for focused discussion, this special issue of Cancers will be devoted to papers that argue for and against this new theory.

Dr. Michael W. Retsky
Guest Editor

Submission Information

All manuscripts should be submitted to cancers@mdpi.org with a copy to the Guest Editor. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. Papers will be published continuously (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are refereed through a peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Cancers is an international peer-reviewed Open Access monthly journal published by MDPI.

For the first two issues, to be published in 2009 and 2010, the Article Processing Charges (APC) will be waived for well-prepared manuscripts. English correction and/or formatting fees of 250 CHF (Swiss Francs) will be charged in certain cases for those articles accepted for publication that require extensive additional formatting and/or English corrections.

• breast cancer
• dormancy
• angiogenesis
• distant relapse
• mammography
• adjuvant chemotherapy
• racial disparities in outcome
• heterogeneity
• aggressiveness
• bimodal relapse pattern
• surgery