“This research shows that the survival advantage in these patients is due to high levels of this protein,” says lead researcher Julio Aguirre-Ghiso. “Tests using this protein marker could further improve curative treatment of breast cancer, sparing patients from unnecessary treatments. Identifying patients with disseminated disease that is not yet symptomatic and characterizing it for potential dormancy or metastatic recurrence is a game changer.”

The benefits of being able to effectively identify patients with more or less aggressive metastatic characteristics simply through a bone marrow test are undeniably significant. But, perhaps ever more exciting, is the potential for harnessing this process and inducing dormancy. Other studies targeting prostate cancer have already revealed that increasing levels of NR2F1 may induce dormancy in that cancer, and research is already underway into drugs that can upregulate NR2F1 to potentially stifle cancer metastasis.

“This opens the way for testing new treatments that prevent metastasis by inducing dormancy or eradicating the dormant disseminated cancer cells that have not yet initiated metastatic growth,” says Aguirre-Ghiso on possible future research directions.

In the short term though, this biomarker discovery can rapidly assist doctors in evaluating the potential aggressiveness of breast cancer once it has metastasized to the bone. While metastatic breast cancer currently has no effective cure, this discovery is an exciting step toward better managing the disease.