November 17, 2009, 8:53 AM CT

A powerful combination punch against breast cancer

A powerful new breast cancer therapy could result from packaging one of the newer drugs that inhibits cancer's hallmark wild growth with another that blocks a primordial survival technique in which the cancer cell eats part of itself, scientists say.

While they are powerful killers of some breast cancer cells, new drugs called histone deacetylase inhibitors, or HDAC inhibitors, also increase self-digestion, or autophagy, in surviving, mega-stressed cells, Medical College of Georgia Cancer Center scientists reported during the Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics International Conference this week in Boston. The conference is sponsored by the American Association for Cancer Research, the National Cancer Institute and the European Organisation for Research and Treatment of Cancer.

"To meet the energy demands of growth and survival, cancer cells start eating up their own organelles, so that surviving cells become dependent on this autophagy," says Dr. Kapil Bhalla, director of the MCG Cancer Center.

"By also using autophagy inhibitors, we pull the rug out from under them. The only way out is death," he says.

Scientists showed the potent HDAC inhibitor panobinostat's impact on autophagy in human breast cancer cells in culture as well as those growing in the mammary fat pads of mice. When they added the anti-malaria drug chloroquine, which inhibits autophagy, breast cancer kill rates increased dramatically......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

November 9, 2009, 8:10 AM CT

Hormone replacement therapy and breast cancer

The use of postmenopausal hormone treatment has decreased over time in the United States, which scientists suggest may play a key role in the declining rate of atypical ductal hyperplasia, a known risk factor for breast cancer.

"Postmenopausal hormone therapy is linked to increased rates of non-malignant breast biopsies, and early and late stages of cancer. Atypical ductal hyperplasia is linked to the use of postmenopausal hormone therapy and its rates have decreased with the decline in use of this therapy," said researcher Tehillah Menes, M.D., who was the chief of breast service in the Department of Surgery at Elmhurst Hospital Center, New York, when this study was conducted.

Details of the findings appear in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, which is a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.

Atypical ductal hyperplasia is abnormal cells that grow in the milk ducts of the breast. Prior research has shown that women who are diagnosed with atypical ductal hyperplasia are at a three- to five-fold increased risk of developing breast cancer.

Using data from the Breast Cancer Surveillance Consortium, Menes and his colleagues examined the rates of atypical ductal hyperplasia to determine risk factors and rates for more than 2.4 million mammography studies with and without breast cancer......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

November 9, 2009, 7:56 AM CT

Women with denser breasts have higher cancer recurrence

A newly released study finds that women treated for breast cancer are at higher risk of cancer recurrence if they have dense breasts. Reported in the December 15, 2009 issue of Cancer, a peer-evaluated journal of the American Cancer Society, the study's results indicate that patients with breast cancer with dense breasts appears to benefit from additional therapies following surgery, such as radiation.

Prior studies indicate that women with dense breast tissue are at increased risk of breast cancer. Scientists have suspected that high breast density may also increase the risk of cancer recurrence after lumpectomy, but this theory has not been thoroughly studied.

Scientists led by Steven A. Narod, MD, of the Women's College Research Institute in Toronto, evaluated the medical records of 335 patients who had undergone lumpectomy for breast cancer. Investigators monitored the patients for cancer recurrence and compared recurrence with breast density as seen on mammogram, categorized as low density (<25 percent dense tissue), intermediate density (25 percent to 50 percent dense tissue) or high density (>50 percent dense tissue).

The scientists observed that patients with the highest breast density had a much greater risk of cancer recurrence than did women with the lowest breast density. Over ten years, women in the highest breast density category had a 21 percent chance of cancer recurrence, compared with a 5 percent chance among women in the lowest category. The difference in the recurrence rates at ten years was even more pronounced for women who did not receive radiation. In those women, 40 percent with high-density breast tissue had a recurrence compared with none of the patients with low density......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

November 4, 2009, 8:22 AM CT

Weight training for breast cancer survivors

In addition to building muscle, weightlifting is also a prescription for self-esteem among breast cancer survivors, as per new University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine research. Breast cancer survivors who lift weights regularly feel better about bodies and their appearance and are more satisfied with their intimate relationships compared with survivors who do not lift weights, as per a newly released study reported in the journal Breast Cancer Research and Treatment.

Survivors' self-perceptions improved with weight lifting regardless of how much strength they gained during the year-long study, or whether they suffered from lymphedema, an incurable and sometimes debilitating side effect of breast surgery.

"It looks like weight training is not only safe and may make lymphedema flare ups less frequent, but it also seems help women feel better about their bodies," says senior author Kathryn Schmitz, PhD, MPH, an associate professor of Epidemiology and Biostatistics and a member of Penn's Abramson Cancer Center. "The results suggest that the act of spending time with your body was the thing that was important -- not the physical results of strength."

The new insights come from a randomized controlled trial that tested the impact of twice-weekly weight lifting for 12 months on survivors' health and emotional status. In the first report from the trial, reported in the New England Journal (NEJM) in August, Schmitz and his colleagues observed that lymphedema sufferers who lifted weights were less likely to experience a worsening of their arm-swelling condition......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

November 2, 2009, 11:12 PM CT

Early-stage, HER2-positive breast cancer

Early-stage patients with breast cancer with HER2 positive tumors one centimeter or smaller are at significant risk of recurrence of their disease, in comparison to those with early-stage disease who do not express the aggressive protein, as per a research studyled by scientists at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center.

The findings, published recently online in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, is the first large study to analyze this cohort and represents a shift in the way women with early-stage HER2 positive breast cancer should be assessed for risk of recurrence and considered for therapy, said the study's senior author, Ana M. Gonzalez-Angulo, M.D, associate professor in M. D. Anderson's Departments of Breast Medical Oncology and Systems Biology.

The research was first presented at the CRTC-AACR San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium in December, 2008.

Herceptin, also known as trastuzumab, was approved for use in 1998 for women whose advanced breast cancer expresses Human Epidermal growth factor Receptor 2, or HER2. Approximately 15-20 percent of breast cancer cells produce an excess amount of the HER2 growth protein on their surface, which makes the cancer more aggressive. Herceptin is a monoclonal antibody that latches on to these proteins and inhibits tumor growth......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

November 2, 2009, 11:01 PM CT

Space-Industry Technology to Treat Breast Cancer

Scientists at Rush University Medical Center and Argonne National Laboratory are collaborating on a study to determine if an imaging technique used by NASA to inspect the space shuttle can be used to predict tissue damage often experienced by patients with breast cancer undergoing radiation treatment. The study is examining the utility of three-dimensional thermal tomography in radiation oncology.

Preliminary results from the study are being displayed during the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) Annual Meeting in Chicago, being held from November 1 - 5, 2009.

Approximately 80 percent of patients with breast cancer undergoing radiation therapy develop acute skin reactions that range in severity. The more severe reactions cause discomfort and distress to the patient, and sometimes result in therapy interruptions. The severity is quite variable among patients and difficult to predict.

"Because reactions commonly occur from 10 to 14 days after the beginning of treatment, if we could predict skin reactions sooner we appears to be able to offer preventative therapy to maximize effectiveness and minimize interruption of radiation therapy," said Dr. Katherine Griem, professor of radiation oncology at Rush.

Scientists at Rush and Argonne are studying if three-dimensional thermal tomography (3DTT) can detect the earliest changes that may trigger a skin reaction. 3DTT is a relatively new thermal imaging process that is currently being used as a noninvasive away to detect defects in composite materials. The basic idea of thermal imaging is to apply heat or cold to a material and observing the resulting temperature change with an infrared camera to learn about its composition......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

October 20, 2009, 10:01 PM CT

Call to reconsider screening for breast cancer and prostate cancer

Twenty years of screening for breast and prostate cancer - the most diagnosed cancer for women and men - have not brought the anticipated decline in deaths from these diseases, argue experts from the University of California, San Francisco and the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio in an opinion piece reported in the "Journal of the American Medical Association".

Instead, overall cancer rates are higher, a number of more patients are being treated, and the occurence rate of aggressive or later-stage disease has not been significantly decreased, the authors conclude. Current screening programs are leading to "potential tumor over-detection and over-treatment," they write in the Oct. 21, 2009 issue of JAMA.

"Screening does provide some benefit, but the problem is that the benefit is not nearly as much as we hoped and comes at the cost of over-diagnosis and over-treatment," said Laura Esserman, MD, MBA, professor of surgery and radiology, director of the UCSF Carol Franc Buck Breast Care Center, and co-leader of the breast oncology program at the UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center.

"We need to focus on developing new tools to identify men and women at risk for the most aggressive cancers, to identify at the time of diagnosis those who have indolent or 'idle' tumors that are not life-threatening," she added. "If we can identify groups of patients that don't need much therapy, or don't need to be screened, wouldn't that be great? Screening is by no means perfect. We should want to make it better. For both breast and prostate cancer we need to invest in changing our focus from the cancers that won't kill people to the ones that do"......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

October 14, 2009, 7:16 AM CT

Transcendental meditation reduces stress

Women with breast cancer reduced stress and improved their mental health and emotional well being through the Transcendental Meditation technique, as per a newly released study reported in the current issue of the peer-evaluated Integrative Cancer Therapies (Vol. 8, No. 3: September 2009).

"A Randomized Controlled Trial of the Effects of Transcendental Meditation on Quality of Life in Older Breast Cancer Patients" was a collaboration between the Center for Healthy Aging at Saint Joseph Hospital; the Institute for Health Services, Research and Policy Studies at Northwestern University; the Department of Psychology at Indiana State University; and the Institute for Natural Medicine and Prevention at Maharishi University of Management.

"It is wonderful that physicians now have a range of interventions to use, including Transcendental Meditation, to benefit their patients with cancer," said Rhoda Pomerantz, M.D., co-author of study and chief of gerontology, Saint Joseph Hospital. "I believe this approach should be appreciated and utilized more widely".

One hundred thirty women with breast cancer, 55 years and older, participated in the two-year study at Saint Joseph Hospital. The women were randomly assigned to either the Transcendental Meditation technique or to a usual care control group. Patients were administered quality of life measures, including the Functional Evaluation of Cancer Therapy-Breast (FACT-B), every six months for two years. The average intervention period was 18 months......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

October 13, 2009, 7:56 AM CT

Tenderness in the breast during HRT

Women who developed new-onset breast tenderness after starting estrogen plus progestin hormone replacement treatment were at significantly higher risk for developing breast cancer than women on the combination treatment who didn't experience such tenderness, as per a new UCLA study.

The research, reported in the Oct. 12 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine, is based on data from more than 16,000 participants in the Women's Health Initiative estrogen-plus- progestin clinical trial. This trial was abruptly halted in July 2002 when scientists observed that healthy menopausal women on the combination treatment had an elevated risk for invasive breast cancer.

Scientists do not know why breast tenderness indicates increased cancer risk among women on the combination treatment, said the newly released study's lead researcher, Dr. Carolyn J. Crandall, a clinical professor of general internal medicine and health services research at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.

"Is it because the hormone treatment is causing breast-tissue cells to multiply more rapidly, which causes breast tenderness and at the same time indicates increased cancer risk? We need to figure out what makes certain women more susceptible to developing breast tenderness during hormone treatment than other women," Crandall said......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

October 7, 2009, 7:10 AM CT

Diffuse Optical Tomography for breast cancer screening

Clemson University scientists in collaboration with scientists at the University of Bremen, Gera number of, are working to make the physical pain and discomfort of mammograms a thing of the past, while allowing for diagnostic imaging eventually to be done in a home setting.

The group is fine-tuning Diffuse Optical Tomography (DOT) to create high-resolution images from a scattering of infrared and visible light for the early detection of breast cancer. While the method is less expensive, safer and more comfortable than X-rays used in mammograms, the problem has been generating a strong enough resolution to detect smaller breast cancers.

Mathematical sciences professors Taufiquar "T.K." Khan of Clemson and Peter Maass of the University of Bremen are in the process of developing mathematical models to improve resolution.

"The problem with DOT is that it is a 3-D method where photon density waves launched from a source travel in a banana-shaped path due to multiple scattering, whereas X-rays follow straight lines which make the mathematical problem more manageable and the resolution of the image sharper." said Khan. "With DOT, near-infrared or near-visible photons make the process safer for the body than with the radiation of X-rays, but they are difficult to track because of the scattering and absorption. So we are coming up with equations that will help get us from capturing cancers that are 4 millimeters in size, down to capturing those as small as 1 millimeter"......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

September 28, 2009, 6:57 AM CT

More breast cancer patients electing to remove other breast

A newly released study of New York State data finds that the number of women opting for surgery to remove the healthy breast after a cancer diagnosis in one breast is rising, despite a lack of evidence that the surgery can improve survival. The study also finds that despite extensive press coverage of women who choose to have both breasts removed because of a strong family history of cancer, the rate of this surgery is relatively low and has changed little in the last decade. The study appears in Cancer, a peer-evaluated journal of the American Cancer Society.

Prophylactic mastectomy, the removal of a nonmalignant breast, is one method for reducing a woman's risk of developing breast cancer; however, there is little information available on the prevalence of prophylactic mastectomies for preventing breast cancer among high-risk women or on the prevalence of the surgery to prevent tumors in the healthy breast among women whose cancer is limited to one breast.

Scientists led by Stephen B. Edge, M.D., FACS, of the Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, NY, examined the frequency of prophylactic mastectomies in New York State between 1995 and 2005 using mandated statewide hospital discharge data combined with data from the state cancer registry. They identified 6,275 female New York residents who underwent prophylactic mastectomies. Eighty-one percent of the women had been diagnosed with cancer in one breast, while 19 percent had no personal history of breast cancer......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

September 23, 2009, 7:02 AM CT

Sorafenib for breast cancer

One of the first of a series of trials to investigate the use of sorafenib a targeted anti-cancer drug for the therapy of advanced breast cancer has observed that if it is combined with the chemotherapy drug, capecitabine, it makes a significant difference to the time women live without their disease worsening.

Principal investigator of the study, Professor Jos Baselga told Europe's largest cancer congress, ECCO 15 ESMO 34 [1], in Berlin today (Wednesday 23 September): "This is the first, large, randomised study that demonstrates significant clinical activity of sorafenib in breast cancer when given in combination with chemotherapy. Our results showed that patients who received sorafenib plus capecitabine had a 74% percent improvement in the time they lived without their disease worsening in comparison to those who received the chemotherapy alone. This is a very positive study and the magnitude of the benefit is such that it suggests that this agent will be an important addition to our therapeutic armoury in breast cancer."

Sorafenib (Nexavar) is a potent multi-kinase inhibitor, which works by interfering with the growth of cancer cells and slowing the growth of new blood vessels within the tumour. Until now, it has only been used in the therapy of kidney and liver cancer......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

September 18, 2009, 6:37 PM CT

Tamoxifen Can Also Cause Serious Side Effects

Three drugs that reduce a woman's chance of getting breast cancer also have been shown to cause adverse effects, as per a new report from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), U.S. Department of Health & Human Services.

The report is based on a study led by Heidi D. Nelson, M.D., M.P.H., research professor in the Oregon Evidence-Based Practice Center at Oregon Health & Science University and medical director of the Women and Children's Program and Research Center at Providence Health & Services. It is published online in the Sept. 15 issue of theAnnals of Internal Medicine.

The study is the first to make a direct, comprehensive comparison of drugs that reduce the risk of breast cancer so that women and their health care providers can assess their potential effectiveness and adverse effects. It compares the use of tamoxifen, raloxifene and tibolone to reduce the risks of getting breast cancer in women without pre-existing cancer.

Tamoxifen, raloxifene and tibolone can be prescribed to women with a family history of breast cancer or other risk factors, but prescribing practices vary widely. As per the study, all three drugs significantly reduce invasive breast cancer in midlife and older women, but benefits and adverse effects can vary depending on the drug and the patient......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

September 15, 2009, 7:36 AM CT

Treating bone loss in breast cancer survivors

A key statistic that consumer groups and the media often use when compiling hospital report cards and national rankings can be misleading, scientists report in a newly released study.

The statistic is called the mortality index. A number above 1.0 indicates a hospital had more deaths than expected within a given specialty. Lower than 1.0 means there were fewer than the expected number of deaths.

The study by Loyola University Health System scientists in the Journal of Neurosurgery illustrates how the mortality index can be misleading in at least two major specialties -- neurology and neurosurgery. The index fails to take into account such factors as whether a hospital treats complex cases transferred from other hospitals or whether a hospital treats lower-risk elective cases or higher-risk non-elective cases.

"A hospital with a lower mortality index may not be a better hospital for patient care, but rather a place where the patient mix has been refined or limited," said senior author Dr. Thomas Origitano, chairman of the Department of Neurological Surgery, Loyola University Stritch School of Medicine.

There is no "definitive or reliable source for rating the quality of overall neurosurgical care," Origitano and his colleagues wrote in the Journal of Neurosurgery, published by the American Association of Neurological Surgeons......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

August 31, 2009, 9:24 PM CT

Breast cancer intervention reduces depression

A psychological intervention for newly diagnosed patients with breast cancer with symptoms of depression not only relieves patients' depression but also lowers indicators of inflammation in the blood.

Those are the findings of a newly released study by scientists at the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center - James Cancer Hospital and Solove Research Institute (OSUCCC-James) and the Ohio State University Department of Psychology involving patients with stage II or III breast cancer.

Patients who received a psychological treatment that reduced stress and enhanced their ability to cope experienced significant relief of depressive symptoms. Moreover, that improvement was followed by a reduction in markers of inflammation.

"Previously, we knew that inflammation was linked to depression-like symptoms among cancer patients, and that both are problematic, but we did not know whether treating depression would affect inflammation," says co-author Barbara L. Andersen, professor of psychology and an OSUCCC-James researcher.

"Inflammation is considered to be a cancer promoting factor, and both depression and inflammation predict increased risk of cancer death".

Patients in the control group received only health and psychological evaluations of their condition over the 12-month study period and showed no improvement in depression or inflammation indicators......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

August 24, 2009, 10:42 PM CT

New prognostic marker for breast cancer

Elevated levels of GLI1 (glioma-associated oncogene homolog 1) protein in human breast cancer are linked to unfavorable prognosis and progressive stages of disease. Scientists writing in the open access journal BMC Cancer found increased expression of GLI1 in samples taken from more advanced and less survivable tumors.

Edgar Dahl led a team of scientists from RWTH Aachen's University Hospital who sought to evaluate whether GLI1 could represent a new prognostic marker in breast cancer therapy. He said, "GLI1, a mediator of the so-called 'hedgehog' signaling pathway, has previously been implicated in the development of different human tumor entities. We've found a positive, significant association between overexpression of GLI1 and unfavorable overall survival outcome in human breast cancer. This association has not been reported anywhere else so far, but similar tendencies were recently shown in human esophageal cancer".

The scientists studied samples of 229 invasive breast carcinomas taken from patients at the hospital, along with samples of normal human breast tissue for comparison. As well as poor survival, overexpression of the GLI1 protein was linked to tumor stage and lymph node status of the breast tumors analyzed. Dahl said, "Taken together, these results support a role of GLI1 as a new prognostic biomarker in breast cancer. Future studies will determine whether GLI1 can be successfully included into multimarker panels for early cancer detection or molecular sub-typing of breast cancer. This could support personalized breast cancer medicine"......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

August 19, 2009, 6:41 AM CT

MRI-detected breast lesions

Reston, Va. Breast MRI allows physicians to evaluate suspicious lesions using a variety of variables. Scientists have found though that computer-aided kinetic information can help significantly in distinguishing non-malignant from cancerous suspicious breast lesions on MRI, as per a research studyreported in the recent issue of the American Journal of Roentgenology (AJR). .

In the study, performed at the University of Washington Medical Center, scientists analyzed and compared the computer-aided assessment variables of 125 suspicious breast lesions. Three different kinetic curves (washout, plateau and persistent), were compared along with lesion morphology (size and shape). "We wanted to clarify which, of the a number of variables that reflect kinetics, were most predictive of malignancy, said Constance Lehman, MD, main author of the study. "We found overlap in kinetic patterns across non-malignant and cancerous lesions, but we did determine that the "most suspicious" curve type, washout, was useful in separating non-malignant from cancerous lesions," said Dr. Lehman.

"Of lesions with the most suspicious curve type (any washout), 45.7 percent were cancerous compared with 20.0 percent with plateau and 13.3 percent with entirely persistent enhancement," she said......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

August 13, 2009, 6:52 AM CT

MRI may cause more harm than good in newly diagnosed early breast cancer

A new review says using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) before surgery to assess the extent of early breast cancer has not been shown to improve surgical planning, reduce follow-up surgery, or reduce the risk of local recurrences. The review, appearing early online in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians, says evidence shows that MRI increases the chances of more extensive surgery over conservative approaches, with no evidence that it improves surgical care or prognosis.

Randomized controlled trials have shown women with early stage breast cancer who are treated with breast-conservation treatment (local excision and radiotherapy) have the same survival rates as those who undergo mastectomy. Recently, MRI has been introduced in preoperative staging of the affected breast in women with newly diagnosed breast cancer because it detects additional areas of cancer that do not show up on conventional imaging. In the current review, Nehmat Houssami, MBBS, Ph.D., of the University of.

Sydney, Australia, and Daniel F. Hayes, M.D., of University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center, Ann Arbor, Mich., evaluated available data on preoperative MRI's detection capability and its impact on therapy. The use of preoperative MRI scans in women with early stage breast cancer has been based on assumptions that MRI's detection capability in this setting will improve surgical therapy by improving surgical planning, potentially leading to a reduction in re-excision surgery, and by guiding surgeons to remove additional disease detected by MRI and potentially reducing recurrence in the treated breast. The authors say emerging data show that this approach to local staging of the breast leads to more women being treated with mastectomy without evidence of improvement in surgical outcomes or long-term prognosis......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

August 4, 2009, 8:25 AM CT

How you eat may be just as important as how much you eat

How you eat appears to be just as important as how much you eat, if mice studies are any clue.

Cancer scientists have long studied the role of diet on breast cancer risk, but results to date have been mixed. New findings published in Cancer Prevention Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, suggest the method by which calories are restricted appears to be more important for cancer protection than the actual overall degree of calorie restriction.

"Understanding how calorie restriction provides protection against the development of mammary tumors should help us identify pathways that could be targeted for chemoprevention studies," said Margot P. Cleary, Ph.D., professor at the Hormel Institute, University of Minnesota. "Further identification of serum factors that are involved in tumor development would possibly provide a way to identify at risk individuals and target interventions to these people".

Prior studies have shown that intermittent calorie restriction provided greater protection from mammary tumor development than did the same overall degree of restriction, which was implemented in a chronic fashion. The scientists compared changes of a growth factor (IGF-1) in relationship to these two calorie restriction methods chronic and intermittent and tumor development beginning in 10-week old female mice at risk to develop mammary tumors. Their hope was to explain why intermittent restriction is more effective......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

July 20, 2009, 11:40 PM CT

Gene that leads to breast cancer's aggressive behavior

Aggressive forms of cancer are often driven by the abnormal over-expression of cancer-promoting genes, also known as oncogenes.

Studies at the Genome Institute of Singapore (GIS), a research institute under the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) of Singapore, have identified a gene, known as RCP (or RAB11FIP1), that is frequently amplified and over-expressed in breast cancer and functionally contributes to aggressive breast cancer behaviour.

The research findings appear in the July 20th online issue of Journal of Clinical Investigation (JCI).

The GIS team, led by Lance Miller, Ph.D., and Bing Lim, Ph.D., initially discovered that RCP expression was positively correlated with cancer recurrence in a population of patients with breast cancer. This suggested that RCP appears to be mandatory by some tumours for growth and metastatic spread to other organs.

When the scientists over-expressed RCP in non-malignant breast cells, they observed that RCP promotes migration, or cellular movement, which is a precursor to the ability of tumours to invade neighbouring tissues.

However, breast cancer cells in which RCP is over-expressed take on a more aggressive behaviour, including faster proliferation, enhanced migration/invasion and anchorage-independent growth......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

July 14, 2009, 7:44 AM CT

Reminder program dramatically increases mammography rates

A reminder program aimed at screening for breast cancer when it is most treatable boosted mammography rates by more than 17 percentage points, as per a newly released study by Kaiser Permanente's Center for Health Research in the recent issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine The program used electronic health records to identify women who would soon be due for a mammogram and reached out to them via postcards, automated voice messages and personal phone calls.

The study of 35,000 Kaiser Permanente members is the largest to test a reminder program involving this three-pronged approach. By the second year of the program in 2008, mammography rates jumped from 63 to more than 80 percent among women aged 50-69.

"We know mammograms are effective, but too a number of women put them off, even when they have health insurance," said main author Adrianne Feldstein, MD, MS, an investigator at Kaiser Permanente's Center for Health Research in Portland, Ore., and a practicing physician. "This study is the first to show that these reminder programs can be effective in such a large group of women. If we could improve the country's mammography rate by the same amount, we could detect as a number of as 25,000 additional cases of breast cancer each year"......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

July 2, 2009, 10:01 PM CT

How tamoxifen stimulates uterine cell growth and cancer

UCSF scientists have identified a new "feed-forward" pathway linking estrogen receptors in the membrane of the uterus to a process that increases local estrogen levels and promotes cell growth.

The research is significant in helping determine why tamoxifen and other synthetic estrogens are associated with increased rates of endometriosis and uterine cancer, and identifies a pathway that could be targeted in drug therapies for those diseases, scientists say.

Findings are reported in the July 1, 2009 issue of "Cancer Research," the journal of the American Association for Cancer Research. The paper also can be found online at http://cancerres.aacrjournals.org/current.shtml.

The research observed that when activated by estrogens, endometrial cells obtained from patients suffering from endometriosis or human uterine cancer cells initiate a previously unknown cascade of signals that leads to cellular replication and further estrogen production, the paper says.

The ensuing cycle leads to abnormal growth of the cells lining the uterus, or endometrium, which occurs in endometriosis and uterine cancer, as per senior author Holly A. Ingraham, PhD, a professor in the UCSF School of Medicine's Department of Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

June 25, 2009, 5:54 PM CT

MRI for imaging breast cancer?

Reviewing the records of 577 patients with breast cancer, Fox Chase Cancer Center scientists observed that women with newly diagnosed breast cancer who receive a breast MRI are more likely to receive a mastectomy after their diagnosis and may face delays in starting therapy. The study demonstrates that, despite the lack of evidence of their benefit, routine use of MRI scans in women newly diagnosed with breast cancer increased significantly between 2004 and 2005, and again in 2006.

The study is online now and will be appearing in the August edition of the Journal of the American College of Surgeons

"We have yet to see any evidence that MRI improves outcomes when used routinely to evaluate breast cancer, and yet more and more women are getting these scans with almost no discernable pattern," said Richard J. Bleicher, M.D., F.A.C.S., a specialist in breast cancer surgery at Fox Chase. "For most women, a breast MRI previous to therapy is unnecessary. MRI can be of benefit because it's more sensitive, but with the high number of false positives and costs linked to the test, more research is needed to determine whether MRI can improve outcomes in women who have already been diagnosed with breast cancer".

Bleicher and colleagues evaluated the records of 577 patients with breast cancer seen in a multidisciplinary breast clinic where they were reviewed by a radiologist, pathologist, and a surgical, radiation, and medical oncologist. Of these patients, 130 had MRIs previous to therapy......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

June 16, 2009, 5:03 AM CT

RNA snippet suppresses spread of aggressive breast cancer

A low cellular level of a tiny fragment of RNA appears to increase the spread of breast cancer in mouse models of the disease, as per scientists at Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research.

Measuring levels of this so-called microRNA, which is also linked to metastatic breast cancer in humans, may more accurately predict the likelihood of metastasis (which accounts for 90% of cancer-related deaths) and ultimately help determine patient prognoses.

In the study, whose results are published in the June 12 issue of Cell, Scott Valastyan, a graduate student in Whitehead Member Robert Weinberg's laboratory, screened patient breast cancer samples for microRNAs with potential roles in metastasis. MicroRNAs are single strands of RNA about 21-23 nucleotides long. Within a cell, a single microRNA can fine-tune the expression of dozens of genes simultaneously. This capability could be especially important in metastasis, a multi-step process that could be influenced by a single microRNA at several points.

The screened samples were classified as either metastatic cancer or non-metastatic cancer. After analysis, the microRNA miR-31 stood out because of its inverse correlation with metastasis. In samples where a patient's original tumor had not metastasized, the cancer cells retained high levels of the microRNA. But where the tumor had metastasized, the cancer cells came to possess lower levels of miR-31......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source