Ricerc@Sapienza

Breast cancer in men is a rare disease, with a higher mortality compared with breast cancer in women. Inherited mutations in BRCA1/2 predispose to male breast cancer (MBC) and may characterize a subgroup of tumors with a peculiar phenotype.
Increasing evidence suggest gender-specific differences in breast cancer, in terms of biological and clinical behavior. However, due to the rarity of the disease, clinical management and therapeutic options of male breast cancer patients has been informed almost entirely by female breast cancer research. Thus, there is an urgent need to obtain further evidence on the molecular basis of this rare disease and how to best treat male patients.
The aim of this project is to dissect MBC immunophenotypes, using an integrating approach, which will include omics, clinical and pathologic data, in order to identify patients that may benefit from personalized treatment.
To investigate the immune landscape in MBC, expression of known immune checkpoint markers and immune cell infiltration profiling will be investigated from transcriptomic data obtained by tumor RNA sequencing. The role of genetic and pathology features in determining specific immunophenotypes will be analyzed by integrating all biomolecular data with clinical and survival information.
Our study, integrating transcriptomic and clinical-pathologic data, will provide insights into key molecular classification of breast cancer which will facilitate the characterization of actionable strategies for MBC patients. The identification of subgroups of patients who deserve specific, individualized clinical management will address an urgent and unmet clinical need in MBC and have profound impact on our approach to this rare disease.