Rachel E. Factor, MD, M.HS

Associate Professor, University of Utah School of Medicine
Director: Breast Pathology, University of Utah School of Medicine
Co-Director: Cytopathology Fellowship, University of Utah School of Medicine

Specialties

• Breast
• Cytopathology

Education

• Master’s Degree—Health Science, Johns Hopkins University, Bloomberg School of Public Heath
• Medical Degree—Albert Einstein College of Medicine
• Residency—Brigham and Women’s Hospital
• Fellowship—Surgical Pathology and Cytopathology, Brigham and Women’s Hospital

Certification/Affiliations

• American Board of Pathology (Anatomic Pathology and Cytopathology)

Research Interests

• Clinical and diagnostic aspects of breast diseases

Recent Publications

• Milner DA Jr, et al. Quantitative assessment of multiorgan sequestration of parasites in fatal pediatric cerebral malaria. J Infect Dis. 2015 Oct 15;212(8):1317–21.
• Kwan ML, et al. Association of high obesity with PAM50 breast cancer intrinsic subtypes and gene expression. BMC Cancer. 2015 Apr 14;15:278.
• Kwan ML, et al. Breast feeding, PAM50 tumor subtype, and breast cancer prognosis and survivial. J Natl Cancer Inst. 2015 Apr 28;107(7).
• Schmidt RL, Factor RE. Researchers should be be aware of partial verification bias in diagnostic accuracy studies. Oral Surg Oral Med Oral Radiol. 2015 May;119(5):593.
• Factor RE, et al. Axillary lymph node FNA in women with breast cancer is a highly accurate procedure, so why are core biopsies being done? Diagnostic Cytopathology. 2015 Jun;43(6):510–2.
• Ciriello G, et al. Comprehensive molecular portraits of invasive lobular breast cancer. Cell. 2015 Oct 8;163(2):506–19.
• Camp N, et al. Discordant haplotype sequencing identified functional variants at the 2q33 breast cancer risk locus. Cancer Research. 2016 Apr 1;76(7):1916–25.
• Gulbahce HE, et al. HER2 immunohistochemistry-guided targeted FISH analysis does not help identify intratumoral heterogeneity in breast cancer. Arch Pathol Lab Med. 2016 Aug;140(8):741.
• Schmidt RL, et al. Statistical literacy among academic pathologists: a survey to gauge knowledge of frequently used statistical tests among trainees and faculty. Arch Pathol Lab Med. 2017 Feb;141():279–87.
• Barazza G, Adler DG, Factor RE. An unexpected diagnosis of ectopic liver diagnosed by fine needle aspiration. CytoJournal. 2016 Dec 20;13:29.
• Lloyd IE, et al. X-ray of excised cancerous breast tissue does not affect clinical biomarker expression. Appl Immunohistochem Mol Morphol. 2018 Aug;26(7):501–8.
• Heng YJ, et al. The molecular basis of breast cancer pathological phenotypes. J Pathol. 2017 Feb;241(3):375–91.
• Cohen AL, et al. A window of opportunity study of valproic acid in breast cancer testing a gene expression biomarker. JCO Precision Oncology. 2017 Apr;1:1–11.
• Stewart RL, et al. HER2 immunohistochemistry and fluorescence in situ hybridization discordances in invasive breast carcinoma with micropapillary features. Mod Pathol. 2017 Nov;30(11):1561–6.
• Brady SW, et al. Combating subclonal evolution of resistant cancer phenotypes. Nature Commun. 2017 Nov 1:8(1):1231
• Vasquez-Arreguin K, et al. BRCA1 through its E3 ligase activity regulates the transcription factor OCT1 and carbohydrate metabolism. Mol Cancer Res. 2018 Mar;16(3):439–52.
• Witt BL, et al. Evaluation of the SharkCore® needle for EUS-guided core biopsy of pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors. Endosc Ultrasound. 2018 Sep-Oct;7(5):323–8.
• Pearson L, et al. Rapid on-site evaluation of fine needle aspiration by non-cytopathologists: a systematic review and meta-analysis of diagnostic accuracy studies for adequacy assessment. Acta Cytol. 2018;62(4):244–52.
• Madsen MJ, et al. Reparameterization of PAM50 expression identifies novel breast tumor dimensions and leads to discovery of a genome-wide significant breast cancer locus at 12q15. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev. 2018 Jun;27(6):644–52.
• Gulbahce HE, et al. Differences in molecular features of triple negative breast cancers based on age at diagnosis. Cancer. 2018 Dec 15;124(24):4676–84.
• Schneider F, et al. The FDA-approved breast cancer HER2 evaluation kit (HercepTest; Dako) may miss some HER2-positive breast cancers. Am J Clin Pathol. 2019 Apr 2;151(5):504–10.
• Schmidt RL, Factor RE. What does it mean for a recommendation to be evidence-based? Lab Med. 2019 Jan 1;50(1):5–7.
• Stewart R, et al. A multigene assay determines risk of recurrence in patients with triple negative breast cancer. Cancer Res. 2019 Jul 1;79(13):3466–78.