Summary

The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) Breast Phenotype Research Group is part of the Cancer Imaging Program (CIP) TCGA Radiology Initiative focused on analyzing images from the TCGA-BRCA collection. These images correlate to the Breast Invasive Carcinoma (BRCA) data in the TCGA Data Portal.

According to TCGA’s page on invasive breast cancers, researchers have:

Described new integrated insights into the four standard molecular subtypes of breast cancer: HER2-enriched, luminal A, luminal B, and basal-like.

Identified mutated genes specific to each subtype.

Found that the basal-like subtype shares many genetic features with high-grade serous ovarian cancer, suggesting that these cancers have a common molecular origin and may share therapeutic opportunities.
Performed computational analyses suggesting that basal-like breast cancer and serous ovarian cancer might be susceptible to two types of cancer treatment:

Anti-angiogenesis drugs that inhibit blood vessel growth, cutting off blood supply to the tumor;
Bioreductive drugs, which are normally inactive but become toxic to cancer cells under low oxygen conditions.

TCGA Breast Marker Paper and Image Source Sites (ISS)

Imaging Source Site (ISS) groups will be populated and governed by participants from institutions that have provided imaging data to the archive for a given cancer type. Modeled after TCGA analysis groups, ISS groups are given the opportunity to publish a marker paper for a given cancer type per the guidelines in the table below. This opportunity will generate increased participation in building these multi-institutional data sets as they become an open community resource. Current TCGA-BRCA source sites include:

Mayo Clinic
Roswell Park Cancer Institute
MemorialSloan-KetteringCancerCenter
University of Pittsburgh/UPMC
University of Miami Health System

The ISS group has also been collaborating with the University of Chicago to conduct quantitative MRI phenotyping efforts. Please contact Dr. Elizabeth Morris (morrise@mskcc.org) if you have scientific questions for TCGA-BRCA ISS or are interested in collaborating with their group.

Research and Publications

Data Source	Status
TCGA Data Portal Publication Guidelines	No restrictions; all data available without limitations
TCIA Data Usage Policies and Restrictions	No restrictions; all data available without limitations

Please contact us at cancerimagingarchive@mail.nih.gov if you have any questions about these policies.

References

Conference abstracts utilizing TCGA-Breast imaging data from TCIA:

The following links contain publications from the main TCGA project as well as their posted publication guidelines: