According to Science Daily when the tumor cells in the breast acquire the capacity to move around and invade other tissue metastases is much more likely to occur and treating breast cancer becomes a lot more difficult.

At the base of the breast is what’s called the basement membrane which surrounds the mammary gland. It acts as a barrier in the spread of the cancer cells. The tumor proteins must actually penetrate this barrier for the cancer to be able to spread.

On June 16 of 2008 the Journal of Cell Biology published that this mechanism of cell formation relation to metastases and some types of breast cancer could become part of a new method of testing for breast cancer early.

Earlier publications, showed where researchers had used a model of metastatic breast cancer cells to show that the proteins sec3, sec8 and IQGAP1 transport vesicles containing proteases to the invadopodia. Their research showed that without sec3, sec8 and IQGAP1 the vesicles cannot be fastened to the ends of the invadopodia and so the cells fail to escape into the surrounding tissue.

A following published study done by Philippe Chavrier and colleagues showed that the protein Vamp7 fuses protease-containing vesicles with the membrane of tumor cells. Only then can the tumor proteins penetrate the basement membrane.

In English what does all this mean to women or men for that matter? It means that thanks to these scientific discoveries researchers now understand why breast cancer is so much more aggressive than other cancers. And that translates into potentially different treatment regimes that include blocking the action of the tumor at the underling basement membrane, stopping it’s potential to aggressively attack other body parts.