Possible Association of Viral Infections with Presence of BRCA1/2Genes Mutations among Breast Cancer Patients: Clinical Relevance and Disease Outcome

Abstract

• BC is one of the most common malignancies and the most common cause of deaths among women around worldwide. This is known to be the second deadliest cancer among American women and the first deadly cancer among European women .In Egypt, BC is the most common cancer in females accounting for 38.8% of all female cancers. Several risk factors for breast cancer were studied as patient age, gender, hormone therapy, the number of offspring, breastfeeding and different eating habits, but other factors remain obscure and less known as oncogenic viral infection and their role in initiating breast cancer and their effect on the path of the disease and its prognosis upon treatment. • Our study focused on exploring relation between the presence of BRCA1/2 mutations and some clinic-pathological characteristics which might impact the pathogenesis of BC disease and establishing diagnostic tool like HRM for genetic counselling, which will help when selecting treatment modalities for BC patients. Also we aimed at evaluating frequency of HPV in different samples, and its association with some clinical and pathological characteristics of BC disease as a possible indicator of BC who are at high risk of development of severe disease. • This study was conducted on 48 BC patients diagnosed and treated at the medical oncology department, National Cancer Institute (NCI), Cairo University between July 2018 and December 2020. The inclusion criteria were young women less than 45 years old suffering from breast cancer and didn’t receive any chemotherapy treatment before surgery. Thirty normal control women without known oncological disease and with comparable age were included as a control group.