The Role of NAF Cytology and Molecular Diagnostic Biomarkers in Screening for Breast Cancer

The sensitivity of a test for detecting an abnormality is an important measure in screening populations for the presence of occult disease. With mammography as the well accepted Gold Standard for breast cancer screening, a comparison of the sensitivity of NAF cytology and molecular diagnostic biomarkers for detecting cancer shows the role for the MASCT System as a screening tool.

The following Table shows the sensitivity of mammography and NAF cytology and biomarkers for detecting cancers, confirmed by needle biopsy.

While NAF cytology seems well suited to identifying atypical ductal hyperplasia the sensitivity of NAF cytology alone for detecting cancer is not ideal. However, the use of cytology and other biomarkers, especially the recently developed technologies of PCR detection of DNA-methylation of oncogene promoters and protein biomarker detection by SELDI-TOF mass spectrometry of the proteome has the potential to make NAF analysis comparable to mammography.