Karma Kontrast is a randomised clinical trial conducted at the mammography unit at Södersjukhuset (Stockholm South General Hospital), Sweden, in collaboration with researchers at Karolinska institutet. The trial will study if contrast enhanced mammography can be used to improve mammography screening. Karma Kontrast is anticipated to go on until January 2022 and will enrol 420 participants.
Due to the pandemic situation enrolment is postponed.
Read more about the trial here (in Swedish only).
Analyses are ongoing in the Karisma 2 Biopsy study. Karisma 2 Biopsy is a nested cohort within the Karisma 2 clinical trial on low-dose tamoxifen, conducted during 2017-2019 in Sweden. In all, 96 participants donated breast biopsied before and after treatment with tamoxifen or placebo. Analyses are ongoing and results are expected after the summer.
We have now completed the Karisma 2 randomised clinical trial on low-dose tamoxifen. In all, 1,440 women were included in the Swedish two-centre study, at Södersjukhuset in Stockholm and at Unilabs in Lund.
The results are being analysed and the first paper is expected to be published after the summer 2020.
Karisma-2 is a dose optimisation study using tamoxifen for preventive use. Women were randomised to five arms of tamoxifen or placebo and were treated for six months.
Doctoral student Shadi Azam has recently published two papers investigating mammographic density change using the KARMA cohort.
In a first paper studying the determinants of change, Azam and colleagues conclude that most risk factors for breast cancer are associated with baseline mammographic density. In contrast, only age, BMI and physical activity are determinants of mammographic density change.
In a second paper, Azam et al. suggest that, although mammographic density is a strong risk factor for breast cancer, mammographic density change does not influence breast cancer risk. Furthermore, density change does not seem to influence the association between baseline mammographic density and breast cancer risk.
The papers can be found at:
Determinants of Mammographic Density Change.
Azam S, Sjölander A, Eriksson M, Gabrielson M, Czene K, Hall P.
JNCI Cancer Spectr. 2019 Feb 4;3(1):pkz004. doi: 10.1093/jncics/pkz004. eCollection 2019 Mar.
Mammographic Density Change and Risk of Breast Cancer.
Azam S, Eriksson M, Sjölander A, Hellgren R, Gabrielson M, Czene K, Hall P
J Natl Cancer Inst. 2019 Jul 12. pii: djz149. doi: 10.1093/jnci/djz149.
The last participants have now ended their participation in Karma Crème-1 and the study is officially closed. Analyses are on-going and we are expecting to publish the results during the autumn 2019.
We have now completed the inclusion of 1,440 women in the Karisma-2 double-blinded clinical trial at the breast centre at Södersjukhuset in Stockholm and at Unilabs in Lund.
Karisma-2 is adose optimisation study using tamoxifen for preventive use.Women were randomised to five arms of tamoxifen or placebo and are treated for six months.
Tamoxifen is used by breast cancer patients to lower the risk of a breast cancer recurrence. It has been shown that perfectly healthy women lower their risk of breast cancer by 50% if they use tamoxifen. However, tamoxifen is not used for prevention due severe side effects.
Preliminary results are expected in late autumn 2019.
Around 62,000 Karma participants have recently received emails regarding strategies for breast cancer risk communication. The Karma group aim to collect questionnaire data from the Karma participants on whether they want to know about their individual risk of breast cancer, and if so, how and by whom the risk should be communicated to the women.
– The Karma project is currently developing a model for individual risk prediction, says Professor Per Hall, PI of the Karma study.
– But before we test such a model in real life and in the clinics, we need to have a better understanding of how women perceive risk, and how we best can communicate about risk in a screening setting. What do screening women consider as gains and losses by changing the screening routine, and are the women interested in participating in preventive strategies such as physical activity and dietary consultation, says Per Hall.
The risk communication questionnaire in an international collaboration between researchers in Sweden, the UK and the Netherlands.
– Sweden has always been in the frontline regarding breast cancer screening therefore it is only logical that we are now taking the next step, says Per Hall.
– I am convinced that we will be the first in the world to implement individualised and risk based breast cancer screening.
Earlier this month the Swedish national television (SVT) visited the Karma study center and met with professor Per Hall, principal investigator of Karma CREME-1 and other personal at the center.
Lisa Frimoding, the first included participant in Karma CREME-1 was interviewed and said – “I think it is important to participate in these types of studies, it may truly help those that are affected. And I might be affected in the future, or my daughter, or mother, or sister”.
“Today we are quite good at predicting which women have a high risk of developing breast cancer, based on breast density, family history, and lifestyle factors. If this crème is working, those women willing to have their individual risk assessed should also be offered medications to reduce the risk of developing breast caner”, says Per Hall.
The complete story can be found here (in Swedish only):
https://www.svt.se/nyheter/vetenskap/ny-metod-provas-mot-brostcancer-salva
The Karma CREME-1 phase 2 clinical trial on topical endoxifen for preventive treatment of women with mammographic breast density is now open for inclusion. The study will include 90 participants and each participant will use topical endoxifen for six months. Preliminary results are expected during spring 2019.
The Swedish Medical Products Agency (MPA) has approved a Phase 2 study of topical endoxifen for preventive treatment of women with mammographic breast density. The study, called Karma CREME-1, will be conducted at Stockholm South General Hospital in Sweden and will be led by principal investigator and Karma cohort initiator Dr. Per Hall, MD, Ph.D., Head of the Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics at Karolinska Institutet. The topical endoxifen is developed by Atossa Genetics Inc. The study will open for inclusion by the end of June 2018.
On the 23rd of February, Dr Johanna Holm defended her thesis entitled “Aggressive breast cancer: epidemiological studies addressing disease heterogeneity”, partly based on Karma samples. In her thesis, Dr. Holm was seeking to increase our understanding of aggressive breast cancer, and how risk factors may be related to it. Her work highlight that interval breast cancers in women with low mammographic density have the most aggressive phenotype, and also suggest disparate genetic backgrounds of screen-detected breast cancers and interval breast cancer. She also show that women at high risk of breast cancer based on genetic and lifestyle factors were significantly more likely to be diagnosed with breast cancer with a favourable prognosis. Her work emphasises that breast cancer subtypes have different aetiologies and highlight the need to identify risk factors separately for distinct breast cancer subtypes and ages of onset.
Link to Dr. Holms thesis: https://openarchive.ki.se/xmlui/handle/10616/46178?_ga=2.116600580.308538842.1529001747-1483963573.1452614977
The Karisma 2 trial on dose optimisation of tamoxifen for preventive use has now reached 800 participants in Lund and in Stockholm and has thereby reached the halfway through milestone. Karisma 2 in expected to close the inclusion by December 2018.
As part of international research consortium including Karma samples, 72 new gene variants that predispose to breast cancer have been identified through an analysis of genetic data from more than 275,000 women, whereof 146,000 with breast cancer. Many of the genes lie in regulatory, rather than coding regions, and some are specific for oestrogen receptor negative breast cancer. “These findings add significantly to our understanding of the inherited basis of breast cancer,” commented Doug Easton, Ph.D., from the University of Cambridge, U.K., one of the lead investigators for the OncoArray consortium, to GEN News. The consortium includes more than 550 researchers at 300 research facilities across the globe.
The OncoArray consortium’s results are published in Nature and in Nature Genetics.
Links to articles in Nature and in Nature Genetics:
One of the key aims of the Karma Project is to identify the women that eventually will be diagnosed with breast cancer. In collaboration with the Swedish mammography screening program we identified increased levels of mammographic density, microcalcifications and suspicious lumps in the breast as key factors for breast cancer risk. We created a risk model to identify the women who are at high risk after a negative mammography to develop breast cancer until the next mammography visit. In the paper (Eriksson et al, 2017) we show that the high-risk women had a nearly 9-fold increased risk of breast cancer compared to the low risk women. In the full model, also accounting for age of the woman, body-mass-index, use of hormonal replacement therapy, and family history of breast cancer, we identified a small proportion of women who had a very high risk for breast cancer within two years after a regular mammography visit.
The paper was published in Breast Cancer Research, March 2017.
Eriksson M, Czene K, Pawitan Y, Leifland K, Darabi H, Hall P. A clinical model for identifying the short-term risk of breast cancer. Breast Cancer Res. 2017 Mar 14;19(1):29. doi: 10.1186/s13058-017-0820-y. PMID: 28288659
Karma Kamera is the study name of a clinical trial at Södersjukhuset, Stockholm, introducing a new technique developed by Real Imaging (realimaging.com).
Real Imaging’s 3D Functional Metabolic Imaging and Risk Assessment (MIRA) technology is intended to provide a non-invasive non-radiation, and examinee-friendly procedure to determine breast health through the acquisition and analysis of 3D metabolic signatures of the breast. The entire procedure takes approximately 20 minutes.
Since this type of risk assessment provided by the MIRA technology is solely based on biological/metabolic signatures, the MIRA technology might be efficiently used to screen women with dense breast tissue. The imaging dataset are not interpreted by a physician, rather a sophisticated computerized assessment would generate the likelihood for suspicious of cancer. A woman with a positive risk (e.g. suspicious for cancer) would need further imaging workup to diagnose and localize the cancer.
The trial is ongoing and will continue through 2014
The Karma study today passes 70,000 participants which makes the study the largest and most well-characterized breast cancer study worldwide.
Leading breast cancer researchers meet in Stockholm on the 59th Nobel Conference to exchange knowledge on the rapidly growing breast cancer worldwide and to start new research projects. Read more
Dr Hall is invited to San Francisco to participate in Athena Breast Health Forum. A serie of discussions about outstanding questions and advancements in breast health between breast cancer experts, health care providers, patients and community members. Athena Breast Health Forum
Karma’s 4th sampling unit is situated in Lund. “Without Unilabs Skåne’s cooperation this had never been possible”, says Per Hall and continues “The Karma study is now recruiting almost a thousand women a week, which is a stunning figure”.
We are proud to present the Karma Research Platform (beta) that we believe will become a game-changer for breast cancer prevention research.