Unraveling the role of stromal disruption in aggressive breast cancer etiology and outcomes.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Aggressive (typically high-grade) breast cancers (BCs) remain major contributors to BC-related mortality globally. The tissue changes underpinning their etiology and outcomes, however, remain poorly characterized.

Methods

Spatially resolved machine-learning algorithms were used to characterize "stromal disruption" as a morphological metric of reduced/altered extracellular matrix and increased immune, inflammatory, and/or wound response-related processes in normal, benign breast disease (BBD), and invasive hematoxylin and eosin (H&E)-stained breast tissues. Associations of stromal disruption with BC etiologic factors were assessed among 4023 healthy breast tissue donors, its impact on BC incidence was assessed among 974 BBD patients in a nested case-control study,

SUBMITTER: Abubakar M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12342738 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature