Imagine a day when a woman will be able to extract a drop of fluid from her nipple and test it at home. A positive test would encourage her to go to her doctor, where the abnormal duct could be identified and treated. This would truly be a "Breast Pap Smear"—and it would mean the end of breast cancer as we know it today.
The Dr. Susan Love Research Foundation is pursuing and funding the intraductal research that will make this dream a reality. We believe that the intraductal approach is the platform technology that will vault us to a new level of success in preventing breast cancer.
Why the intraductal approach? The word intraductal mean within the ducts. The ducts are the passages inside the breast that the milk travels through to get to the nipple. The lobules are the parts of the breast capable of making milk. Virtually all breast cancer begins inside the milk ducts. Using two new technologies, a catheter and a scope, researchers can see and assess what is happening inside the ducts, and to learn more about the anatomy of the breast and how the normal breast operates—which we still, amazingly, do not know.
This ability to gain insight into normal breast functioning will allow us to better understand how breast cancer begins. With this knowledge in hand, we can study how to reverse early cancerous changes. In addition, the intraductal approach provides us with access to the fluid that is contained inside the ducts. Studying this fluid may finally lead to the development of a blood or fluid test that would go beyond identifying cancers that are already present to identifying cells that are "thinking" about becoming cancer some day. This would be true breast cancer prevention—and it would mark the beginning of the end of this disease.
Learn more about the groundbreaking intraductal research the Foundation is conducting.
Learn more about the grants we have given to cutting-edge research projects.
Learn more about the intraductal approach by reading reports from the Foundation's biennial International Symposium on the Intraductal Approach to Breast Cancer.
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