Skip to main content
An official website of the United States government
Email

Stromal Disruption Predicts Aggressive Breast Cancer Risk and Poorer Survival

, by NCI Staff

tissue samples showing minimal and substantial stromal disruption in the breast

Slides showing minimal disruption (left) and substantial disruption (right) in breast stromal tissue

A team of investigators led by Mustapha Abubakar, M.D., Ph.D., Earl Stadtman investigator in the Integrative Tumor Epidemiology Branch, identified disruptions in stromal tissue as a predictive biomarker for risk of developing aggressive breast cancer among women with benign breast disease, and poorer rates of survival among women with invasive breast cancer. 

The findings could help inform the development of cancer prevention and treatment strategies that target the stromal microenvironment. In addition, stromal disruption is inexpensive to assess and could be widely adopted, particularly in low-resource settings where molecular analysis is impractical or very expensive.

Read the NIH Media Advisory to learn more.

Reference

Abubakar M et al. Unraveling the role of stromal disruption in aggressive breast cancer etiology and outcomes. JNCI. 2025.

< Older Post

Trends in Early Onset Cancers

If you would like to reproduce some or all of this content, see Reuse of NCI Information for guidance about copyright and permissions. In the case of permitted digital reproduction, please credit the National Cancer Institute as the source and link to the original NCI product using the original product's title; e.g., “Stromal Disruption Predicts Aggressive Breast Cancer Risk and Poorer Survival was originally published by the National Cancer Institute.”

Email