Adetunji Toriola
Washington University in St Louis, MO·Public Health & Epidemiology
Women with dense breast tissue on a mammogram face a four- to six-fold higher risk of breast cancer. About 29% of breast cancers before menopause are attributed to dense breasts.
- Fields
Public Health & Epidemiology
Medicine & Clinical Research
- Topics
breast cancer prevention
mammographic density
dense breasts
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through Jul 2027
What they work on
- Test in a randomized, placebo-controlled trial of 210 high-risk premenopausal women whether two doses of denosumab, a drug that blocks RANKL signaling, reduce volumetric mammographic density measured by Volpara at 12 months.
- Determine how RANKL inhibition with denosumab changes breast tissue gene expression, the metabolome and biomarkers associated with breast cancer.
- Reduce tobacco use and tobacco-related cancers through research spanning prevention, detection and cessation within the Siteman Cancer Center catchment area.
- Advance dissemination and implementation science methods to speed the uptake of evidence-based cancer prevention and control practices.
More about the research
When breast density falls, breast cancer rates fall too. However, diet and lifestyle changes in adulthood have not been shown to lower density. Finding a biological pathway that a drug can target to reduce density could therefore open a new route to preventing breast cancer.
Why it matters
Premenopausal women with dense breasts who lack a strong inherited cancer risk currently have few prevention options. If denosumab lowers breast density, it could become a new strategy for preventing breast cancer in this high-risk group. Program-level research on tobacco and implementation aims to cut the cancer burden in a region with high smoking and lung cancer rates.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Francine Laden
Harvard University, MA·Public Health & Epidemiology
Determine how air pollution, ultraviolet radiation, radon, demographic factors and social determinants of health relate to mammographic density, texture and deep-learning risk scores in Nurses' Health Study 3 participants.
Bettina Drake
Washington University in St Louis, MO·Public Health & Epidemiology
Monitor and evaluate cancer burden and differences in screening, mortality and morbidity across 82 Missouri and Illinois counties, comparing rural communities and Medically Underserved Areas.
Pamela Ling
University of California-San Francisco, CA·Public Health & Epidemiology
Adapt the Quit the Hit Toolkit for delivery by youth-serving organizations, assessing their needs and capacity and creating facilitator training materials plus guides for promoting and adopting the program.
The school
Washington University in St Louis: 97 labs on PI Pages, $1.2B a year on research, 365 research doctorates a year.
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