title: Desmoplasia: a response or a niche?
abstract: Desmoplasia--the presence of a rich stroma around a tumor--has long been associated with a poor clinical outcome in patients with cancer. It is considered to be a response to the presence of invasive tumor cells. There is now evidence that desmoplasia is the result of coordinated changes in several stromal cells under the control of a single gene product, CD36, whose repression leads to a decrease in fat accumulation and an increase in matrix deposition. The presence of these changes in tumor-free human breast tissue strongly suggests that desmoplasia may precede and not always follow the presence of malignant cells. This concept has an important clinical implication for women at high risk of developing breast carcinoma, considering that the presence of desmoplasia in normal breast tissue detected in the form of mammographic density is one of the strongest risk factors.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics and Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California and The Saban Research Institute of Children's Hospital Los Angeles, California 90027, USA. declerck@usc.edu
authors.forename: Yves A
authors.initials: YA
authors.lastname: DeClerck
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001943:Breast Neoplasms / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D018955:CD36 Antigens / Q000096:biosynthesis*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D011859:Radiography; D017154:Stromal Cells / Q000378:metabolism*
chemical_list: D018955:CD36 Antigens