These findings revealed a role for ABL kinases in regulating tumor-bone interactions and provide a rationale for using ABL-specific inhibitors to limit breast cancer metastasis to bone.
Our findings establish a prognostic value for Arg and cortactin as predictors of metastatic dissemination and suggest that therapeutic inhibition of ABL kinases may be used for blocking breast cancer metastasis.
Using these figures as cut-off points, elevated CK-19: ABL ratios were detected in peripheral-blood samples of 20 of 37 (54%) patients with metastatic breast cancer and in bone marrow samples of 14 of 23 (61%) patients with primary breast cancer.