Fatima Cardoso, MD

2007-2008 BCRF Project:
Co-Investigators: Martine J. Piccart-Gebhart, MD, PhD, Jules Bordet Institute, Brussels, Belgium; Laura van 't Veer, PhD, Netherlands Cancer Institute; and Giuseppe Viale, MD, PhD, University of Milan School of Medicine

The key to individualizing treatment for cancer lies in finding a way to quickly "translate" the discoveries made by laboratory scientists in recent years into tools that physicians can use to help make decisions about the way they treat patients. This area of medicine that links basic laboratory study to the treatment of patients is called translational research.

TRANSBIG has been created as a multi-disciplinary network of excellence devoted specifically to this type of research in breast cancer and is a research network of 39 world-class institutions in 21 countries. Each participating organization brings with it expertise that ranges from being specialized in cutting-edge biomedical technologies and cancer treatment programs to lobbying governments on behalf of patient groups and supporting cancer societies.

In the context of its first project, the MINDACT trial, and with the support of BCRF, the Consortium has created an independent biological materials bank where the fresh frozen tumor tissue, tumor paraffin blocks and blood/serum from patients included in clinical trials run under the TRANSBIG network will be stored. This bank, which will be managed by the TRANSBIG Steering Committee, will constitute a unique pool of resources for future research in fields such as genomics (study of the genes of a tumor) and proteomics (study of the proteins in blood and tumor) amongst others.

In February 2007, the TRANSBIG Consortium achieved one of its main objectives: launching the very complex and innovative MINDACT clinical trial based on a 70-gene signature (MAMMAPRINT™). This signature is a tool developed by the Netherlands Cancer Institute that can analyze the genes of a patient's tumor and determine whether a cancer is likely to come back (in which case treatment with chemotherapy after surgery is probably needed) or not (in which case chemotherapy may be avoided). The aim of MINDACT is to show that this "genomic signature" is better than the methods currently used to determine which node-negative breast cancer patient need chemotherapy after their breast cancer has been surgically removed (called "adjuvant chemotherapy").

If the study hypothesis is correct, the overall quality of life for many women with breast cancer will be improved, as up to 20% fewer patients will require adjuvant chemotherapy. To allow more patients to benefit from this new tool, the Consortium is now undertaking the validation of the 70-gene signature in two different patient populations that have not been analyzed so far: 1-3 positive nodes patients, and elderly patients (>70-years old). If proven also valid in these patient’s populations, the MINDACT trial will be amended to include them, and, in the future, the use of this very important new tool may be much broader.

Mid-Year Progress Report:
To date, 195 women have been enrolled in the MINDACT trial, which is now open for accrual in 36 centers from 5 different countries, with many more centers expected to open for accrual in the near future. Since October 2007, the TRANSBIG Consortium has demonstrated that this 70-gene signature can be used to identify a group of women whose cancer involves 1-3 lymph nodes with a low risk of recurrence. The results of this work were presented as a late-breaking abstract at the annual San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium in December 2007. As a result, the MINDACT trial will now include women with 1-3 involved lymph nodes.

During the second part of this grant period (February to September 2008), the TRANSBIG Consortium will test the utility of the 70-gene signature in predicting the risk of relapse in elderly women diagnosed with breast cancer (>70 years), which may lead to the inclusion of these patients in the MINDACT trial. Ultimately, the hope is that doctors may use the 70-gene signature in the future to better identify women with breast cancer, regardless of lymph node involvement and age, who can be spared unnecessary chemotherapy following the removal of their primary tumor.

Bio:
Dr Fatima Cardoso finished Medical School in 1992 in University of Porto, Portugal and her specialty in Medical Oncology (Board certification) in July 2000 at the Portuguese Institute of Oncology – Porto Center, Portugal. From November 2000 to October 2002, she worked at the Translational Research Unit of the Jules Bordet Institute-Brussels (Prof Martine Piccart), as a Clinical and Translational Research Fellow, supported by an educational grant from the "Université Libre de Bruxelles". From November 2002 to August 2003, she worked at the Department of Molecular and Cellular Oncology of the MD Anderson Cancer Center, Texas, USA (Prof Mien-Chie Hung) as a Basic Research Fellow, supported by an educational grant from the MD Anderson Cancer Center and from the "Fonds Jean-Claude Heuson"- Belgium. Since October 2003, she has been an Assistant Professor at the Medical Oncology Clinic of the Jules Bordet Institute, Brussels, Belgium, where besides her clinical work, she is an active member of the Translational Research Unit, she is responsible for phase II-III trials in breast cancer, and is the Scientific Director of the TRANSBIG network. She is also board certified in Internal Medicine since October 2004.

Dr Cardoso's research interests include the biology of breast cancer, predictive markers of response to systemic therapy and new anti-cancer agents. Dr Cardoso is a member of EORTC-BCG, ASCO, AACR, WICR, ESMO, EACR, and Co-founder & former Vice-President of the "Flims Alumni Club (FAC)" (a multidisciplinary European network of young cancer specialists). She is also a member of the prestigious group "Innovators in Breast Cancer".

She has been invited to give lectures in several national and international meetings, she is a member of the faculty of the FECS/AACR/ASCO Flims Workshop on "Methods in Clinical Cancer Research", and the responsible professor of the subject "Research in Oncology" of the Master in Oncology of the Portuguese Institute of Oncology-University of Port, Portugal. She is also a member of the School of Oncology-European Breast Cancer Conference Task Force for the development of guidelines for Metastatic Breast Cancer. She is an associated/specialty editor for The Breast, EJC and "Le Journal du Réseau Cancer de l’Université Libre de Bruxelles", and member of the editorial board of several other Journals. She presently has 109 publications (41 as first/last author) and twelve book chapters.

She had received several educational and research grants from the European Society of Medical Oncology (ESMO), the Federation of European Cancer Societies (FECS), the Portuguese League Against Cancer, the Portuguese Ministry of Health, the Free University of Brussels, the "Fonds Jean-Claude Heuson", the Fondation Lambeau-Marteau, the Belgian Federation against Cancer, and the European Union Framework VI Programme.