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Background: The aggressive nature of breast cancers detected between planned mammographic screens, so-called interval cancers, remains elusive. Here, we aim to characterise underlying molecular features of interval cancer. Methods: From 672 patients with invasive breast cancer, we analysed gene expression differences between 90 ‘true’ interval cancer cases (i.e. women with low-dense breasts defined as per cent mammographic density 1.5). Gene set enrichment analysis showed immune-related pathways as key processes altered in interval cancer. Our IC-Gx, based on 47 genes with the strongest associations (false discovery rate < 0.05), was found to be associated mainly with immune subtypes involving interferon response. We isolated an interaction network of interval cancer and interferon genes for which a significant load of somatic and germline variants in class I interferon genes was observed. Conclusion: We identified novel molecular features of interval breast cancer highlighting interferon pathways as a potential target for prevention or treatment.
Ugalde‐Morales et al. (Mon,) studied this question.
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