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Abnormal metabolism can be a hallmark of cancer occurring early before detectable histological changes and may serve
as an early detection biomarker. The current gold standard to establish breast cancer (BC) diagnosis is histological
examination of biopsy. Previously we have found that pre-cancer and cancer tissues in animal models displayed
abnormal mitochondrial redox state. Our technique of quantitatively measuring the mitochondrial redox state has the
potential to be implemented as an early detection tool for cancer and may provide prognostic value. We therefore in this
present study, investigated the feasibility of quantifying the redox state of tumor samples from 16 BC patients. Tumor
tissue aliquots were collected from both normal and cancerous tissue from the affected cancer-bearing breasts of 16
female patients (5 TNBC, 9 ER+, 2 ER+/Her2+) shortly after surgical resection. All specimens were snap-frozen with
liquid nitrogen on site and scanned later with the Chance redox scanner, i.e., the 3D cryogenic NADH/oxidized
flavoprotein (Fp) fluorescence imager. Our preliminary results showed that both NADH and Fp (including FAD, i.e.,
flavin adenine dinucleotide) signals in the cancerous tissues roughly tripled to quadrupled those in the normal tissues
(p<0.05); and the redox ratio Fp/(NADH+Fp) was about 27% higher in the cancerous tissues than in the normal ones
(p<0.05). Our findings suggest that the redox state could differentiate between cancer and non-cancer breast tissues in
human patients and this novel redox scanning procedure may assist in tissue diagnosis in freshly procured biopsy
samples prior to tissue fixation. We are in the process of evaluating the prognostic value of the redox imaging indices for
BC.
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