About this Research Topic
Historically, breast cancer is diagnosed during (or shortly after) pregnancy, known as PABC. Nowadays, a distinction is made between breast cancer diagnosed during pregnancy (PrBC) and in the postpartum period (PPBC). It is known that PABC exhibits more aggressive disease characteristics, such as a higher tumour grade, less frequent expression of hormone receptors, higher overall stage at diagnosis, and overall a worse prognosis, which largely disappears when correcting for patient and tumour characteristics. More recent, in-depth research has shown that differences exist between the various PABC subgroups and their tumour biology, for example even between the trimesters of diagnosis. Yet, why we observe these aggressive disease characteristics more often in PABC remains to be elucidated.
Rather than focusing on PABC as a unique entity, we propose to leverage the unique circumstances of breast cancer during (PrBC) or shortly after pregnancy (PPBC) as a looking glass for breast cancer in general. For example, many factors associated with (a healthy) pregnancy, are also associated with breast cancer.
In contrast, the PABC patient population is unique. PABC patients are diagnosed during a crucial time in their life. They are confronted with a deadly disease in a phase of life that is centred around new life. Their questions and needs may not be reflected by those expressed by the general breast cancer population and general breast cancer patient advocacy groups, and are currently not well represented or involved in ongoing research.
We are interested in all manuscripts on PrBC or PPBC (original articles, reviews, comments), ranging from tumour biology and cohorts to patient involvement and perspectives.
Please note: Manuscripts consisting solely of bioinformatics, computational analysis, or predictions of public databases which are not accompanied by validation (independent clinical or patient cohort, or biological validation in vitro or in vivo, which are not based on public databases) are not suitable for publication in this journal.
Rather than focusing on PABC as a unique entity, we propose to leverage the unique circumstances of breast cancer during (PrBC) or shortly after pregnancy (PPBC) as a looking glass for breast cancer in general. For example, many factors associated with (a healthy) pregnancy, are also associated with breast cancer.
In contrast, the PABC patient population is unique. PABC patients are diagnosed during a crucial time in their life. They are confronted with a deadly disease in a phase of life that is centred around new life. Their questions and needs may not be reflected by those expressed by the general breast cancer population and general breast cancer patient advocacy groups, and are currently not well represented or involved in ongoing research.
We are interested in all manuscripts on PrBC or PPBC (original articles, reviews, comments), ranging from tumour biology and cohorts to patient involvement and perspectives.
Please note: Manuscripts consisting solely of bioinformatics, computational analysis, or predictions of public databases which are not accompanied by validation (independent clinical or patient cohort, or biological validation in vitro or in vivo, which are not based on public databases) are not suitable for publication in this journal.
Keywords: Pregnancy, postpartum, breast cancer, triple negative, estrogen, progesterone, lactation
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