The TEAM study, led by Drs. Mary-Anne Rossing, Nicole Urban and Anne McTiernan, is a two-year study looking at how taking a daily regular strength aspirin capsule affects mammogram density on mammogram films.  Mammogram density refers to the proportion of cloudy, white areas on a mammogram (connective and epithelial tissues of the breast) and dark-appearing areas (fatty breast tissue).  Increased density of breast tissue makes mammograms more difficult to interpret.  If the aspirin decreases mammogram density, it may help doctors read and interpret mammogram films and may make it easier to identify breast cancer if it is present.  This is important as women with the highest levels of breast density have a four-to-six times higher risk of developing breast cancer than women with the lower levels of dense breast tissue. 

Funded by an NCI/AVON "Progress for Patients Award" the TEAM Study is seeking 144 healthy, post-menopausal women between the ages 50-75, who have not taken hormone replacement therapy in the past 6 months, who do not have a history of invasive breast cancer and who are not taking non-steroidal anti-inflammatory medications (e.g. aspirin, Advil, Ibuprofen) on a regular basis to join this study.  Participant commitment is for 6 months.  Half of the women enrolled in the TEAM Study will be assigned to take a daily aspirin, the other half a daily placebo.  If you would like more information about the TEAM Study and/or are interested in participating please call us at (206) 667-1391, email us at team@fhcrc.org or find us on the web at http://fhcrc.org/donating/other/study/, type "TEAM" in option A and click "Go".

To date 1,403 women have been enrolled in this study at all four participating sites. Over the next year, recruitment efforts will start winding down as investigators focus on the second phase of the study, which is to evaluate candidate biomarkers for inclusion in a panel that could be used with existing screening methods to improve early detection of breast cancer. Investigators will validate biomarkers using blood samples collected from study participants. Markers that perform well will be able to distinguish cancer from benign or normal conditions among average- and high-risk populations. Investigators are currently in the process of completing pre-validation studies of candidate markers using samples from the specimen repository of Dr. Andrew Godwin at Fox Chase Cancer Center. Once pre-validation tests are complete and the resulting biomarker assays have been sufficiently refined, the investigators will select specimens for the final validation analyses.

This project is an InterSPORE collaboration led by Dr. Nicole Urban and involves investigators at the Hutchinson Center in Seattle, Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia, MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston and the University of Alabama at Birmingham. It was funded as a two-year study through an Avon-NCI “Progress for Patients Award.”