May 8, 2006, 7:14 AM CT

Outcomes In Lobular Invasive Carcinoma Of The Breast

A new study has confirmed that invasive lobular carcinoma can be effectively treated just like invasive ductal carcinoma by breast conservation surgery. The study proves that invasive lobular carcinoma does not require any additional preferential therapy compared to invasive ductal carcinoma.

Invasive ductal carcinoma is rare compared to the ductal carcinoma, and currently doctors are treating both subtypes of breast cancer similarly with breast conservation surgery in early stages of the disease. Now there is some proof to the all in one approach by the physicians and surgeons.

These findings appear in the latest issue of CANCER, which is a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society. Invasive lobular carcinoma is associated with similar success rates with breast conservation surgery and is not associated with any additional surgeries compared to invasive ductal carcinoma. Some recent studies have suggested invasive lobular carcinoma has suggested that breast-conserving surgery is not appropriate for invasive lobular carcinoma, and this study challenges that finding.

Invasive lobular carcinoma makes up only 10 percent of all breast cancers, and because of this data focusing on invasive lobular carcinoma is scanty. Much of information on mammography screening and breast conservation surgery are based on data from invasive ductal carcinoma which comprises of up to 85 percent of all breast cancers.........

Posted by: Sherin      Permalink

May 6, 2006, 6:50 AM CT

Fenretinide For Breast Cancer Prevention?

A trial meant to reduce the risk of recurrence of breast cancer in postmenopausal women by taking a vitamin like drug had just the opposite effect. Instead of decreasing the risk of breast cancer the drug has actually increased the risk of breast cancer.

Postmenopausal women who took the vitamin A derivative called fenretinide daily for five years after breast cancer surgery to help prevent cancer recurrence ended up having 23 percent increase in the breast cancer incidence compared to women who were not taking this drug.

A subgroup of younger premneopausal women however experienced a 38 percent reduction in the breast cancer recurrence.

This result comes from re-analysis of data from a 15-year study, which included 2,800 women from Europe who had undergone surgery for breast cancer. These research results appeared in the recent issue of the Annals of Oncology.

When the initial results from this trial was published in 1999 with data from the initial 11 years of the study, experts believed that the data showed no support for the argument that this drug decreases risk of breast cancer. Fenretinide is not approved for breast cancer prevention in the United States. Users of the drug have also experience higher incidence of night blindness in some users.........

Posted by: Sherin      Permalink

May 4, 2006, 4:58 PM CT

Breast Conservation Is A Good Option

For women diagnosed with a type of non-invasive breast cancer, removing the breast is not the only therapy option. Breast conserving surgery, long known to be successful at treating the more common invasive cancer, can also be effective for this pre-invasive condition, as per a new study from scientists at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center.

The condition, called ductal carcinoma in situ, or DCIS, is being diagnosed more often. It accounts for 22 percent of all breast cancer diagnoses and affects about 62,000 women each year. If left untreated, DCIS can progress to invasive breast cancer, which is the most common type of breast cancer diagnosed.

Treatment for DCIS is either mastectomy, which removes the entire breast, or breast-conserving lumpectomy, which removes only the malignant area, followed by radiation treatment.

In this study, scientists at U-M and William Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, Mich., looked at the records of women who had opted for lumpectomy and radiation for DCIS between 1981 and 2003. Of the 513 women studied, only 8 percent developed a recurrence of breast cancer or DCIS.

Of those recurrences, 97 percent were detected by mammography, and 91 percent were diagnosed exclusively by mammography, suggesting that regular follow-up mammograms are a reliable way of detecting any return of cancer after breast-conserving surgery.........

Posted by: Janet      Permalink         Source

May 3, 2006, 11:26 PM CT

Fenretinide Cuts The Risk Of Second Breast Cancers

A 15-year follow-up of women in a breast cancer trial has found that fenretinide[1] - a drug correlation to vitamin A - significantly cuts the risk of a second breast cancer among younger patients.

The Italian research team reporting the findings on-line (Thursday 4 May) in Annals of Oncology[2], are sufficiently convinced of the drug's protective potential to call for a trial to test its use as a preventive in pre-menopausal healthy women at high risk of the disease. They are now seeking international partners and funding for such a trial.

The women in the long-term follow-up comprised a sub-group of 1,700 - 60% of the patients in a 10-centre trial lead by Professor Umberto Veronesi and co-ordinated by Milan's Istituto Nazionale Tumori when he was its director. The study, which began in 1987, randomised more than 2,800 women to receive 200 mg fenretinide daily for five years or no extra therapy after surgery for early-stage breast cancer.

The new analysis, also lead by Professor Veronesi, who is now Director of the European Institute of Oncology in Milan, followed the 1,739 patients who had been recruited by the Istituto Nazionale Tumori centre, investigating whether these patients developed a second cancer either in the treated breast or the other breast.........

Posted by: Janet      Permalink         Source

May 2, 2006, 7:16 AM CT

Biomarker For Persistent Fatigue From Breast Cancer

Wouldn't it be nice to know in advance if you would develop long-term persistent fatigue from chemotherapy for breast cancer, so that an informed decision can be made previous to taking chemotherapy? Thanks to the finding of some of the scientists this may be possible in future.

Dr. Michael Irwin of the University of California, Los Angeles' Semel Institute and his colleagues have discovered a biological marker to identify breast cancer survivors at risk for long-term persistent fatigue. It is estimated that about one third of breast cancer survivors experience disabling fatigue that lasts for years.

Breast cancer survivors who suffer from persistent, disabling fatigue may have immune systems that don't shut down following therapy. Dr. Irwin says that this newly discovered biomarker could identify and predict which women would develop long-term persistent fatigue. Currently we have no available therapy for cancer related fatigue. Dr. Irwin hopes that this finding will lead to development of drugs that would one day be used to treat persistent fatigue among breast cancer survivors.

The study included blood samples from 32 breast cancer survivors with persistent fatigue and this was compared to blood samples from 18 breast cancer survivors who did not suffer from fatigue.........

Posted by: Sherin      Permalink

April 25, 2006, 6:54 AM CT

Chemotherapy Gel To Fight Breast Cancer And Reduce Breast Deformity

Women who undergo surgery for breast cancer followed by radiation therapy often experience breast deformities that can only be corrected through reconstructive surgery. Researchers at the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine, in collaboration with bioengineers at Carnegie Mellon University, have developed a polymer-based therapy for breast cancer that could serve as an artificial tissue filler after surgery and a clinically effective therapy. Their findings, based on studies with mice, will be presented at 10:15 a.m., Tuesday, April 25 at the World Congress on Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine, April 24 to 27, at the Westin Convention Center in Pittsburgh.

"Although radiation therapy is the standard treatment for breast cancer following surgery, it is expensive, time consuming and increases the cosmetic deformity caused by surgery," said Howard D. Edington, M.D., associate professor of surgery and surgical oncology at the University of Pittsburgh and faculty member at McGowan. "We sought to develop a possible alternative to radiation therapy that would not only release chemotherapy slowly to kill the cancerous cells left behind after surgery but that also would fill in the dimples and sometimes quite significant indentations that are common after breast surgery and radiation".........

Posted by: Sherin      Permalink         Source

April 20, 2006, 8:45 PM CT

Black Lean Women Face Dangers From Hormone Replacement

Increased risk of breast cancer associated with hormone replacement treatment is well known and has been discussed in this column before. Now a new study has shown that Black women have an increased risk of development of breast cancer when they take replacement hormones compared to Caucasian women. The research also found that, and that the risk is greater for leaner women.

Most of the prior studies that have linked increased breast cancer risk to the use of hormone replacement treatment were done on Caucasian women, hence this information regarding Black women was not available. The chief investigator, Dr. Lynn Rosenberg of Boston University and his colleagues investigated the association between breast cancer and hormone treatment using data from the Black Women's Health Study.

In this study data from 32,559 women 40 years of age or older was used. Scientists have shown that among these women 615 have developed breast cancer.

Rosenberg and his colleagues found that use of hormone replacement for 10 or more years is associated with a 58 percent increased risk of development of breast cancer. Interestingly they found that women lean body with history of hormone replacement of 10 years or more had three times the risk of breast cancer.

Scientists suggest that heavier women may be producing more estrogen from fat tissue and may be less affected by taking estrogens than leaner women.........

Posted by: Sherin      Permalink         Source

April 18, 2006, 7:03 AM CT

New Drug For Breast Cancer Prevention

One more breakthrough and one more addition to the armamentarium to fight against breast cancer. National Cancer Institute reports that one of the largest breast cancer studies ever done showed that the osteoporosis drug Raloxifene (Evista andreg;) is as effective as tamoxifen in the prevention of breast cancer.

Raloxifene (Evista andreg;) has a lower side effort profile compared to tamoxifen and has 36 percent fewer uterine cancer risk and about 30 percent fewer risk of blood compared to Tamoxifen.

Tamoxifen is indicated for women who are at high risk of developing breast cancer for example those women who carry BRCA mutations. Since Raloxifene is as effective as tamoxifen with lesser side effects, this drug may soon replace Tamoxifen for prevention of breast cancer in high-risk women. Raloxifene needs approval from FDA as a breast cancer prevention drug before it could be used for this purpose.

Currently an estimate 500,000 women use Raloxifene to reduce the risk of osteoporosis, so it is expected that a number of women will be comfortable using it for breast cancer prevention.

"There is something proactive you can do if you're at higher than average risk of getting breast cancer," said Dr. James Stewart who is the director of the breast cancer program at the UW Comprehensive Cancer Center. "The sticky part of it will be sitting down with your doctor to talk about are the expected benefits worth it".........

Posted by: Sherin      Permalink

April 12, 2006, 5:51 PM CT

Looking For Participant For An Online Survey Of Cancer Blogs

Survey

Deborah S. Chung, Ph.D. who is Assistant Professor at University of Kentucky School of Journalism and Telecommunications has contacted me about an online survey for cancer patients. This is a study about cancer blog use by cancer patients.

The purpose of this study is to describe characteristics of cancer blog users and their motivations for visiting cancer blogs. In addition, this study hopes to assess behavioral changes after using cancer blogs and to draw associations between everyday use of media and use of cancer blogs.

This study will help cancer information seekers and healthcare providers alike understand how blogs as a new communication tool may potentially help cancer patients seek information and/or communication.

The information collected form this survey will be accessible only to the researchers. No personally identifiable information will be collected, and information will be presented in aggregate form. The survey will be collected on a server with SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) capabilities, which is one of the best providers of Internet security available, but there is always a risk that a third party may intercept the survey answers.

There are no foreseeable risks associated to this study. However, if you feel uncomfortable answering the survey questions, you may choose to skip a question or withdraw from the study at any time.........

Posted by: Sherin      Permalink         Source

April 11, 2006, 11:35 PM CT

Advances In Chemotherapy Improve Outcomes In Breast Cancers

Recent advances in chemotherapy have significantly reduced the risk of disease recurrence and death in breast cancer patients whose tumors are not hormone sensitive, as per a research studyby scientists at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and 10 other institutions. The findings will be published in the April 12 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The scientists found that breast cancer patients whose disease had spread to the lymph nodes and was estrogen-receptor-negative (ER-negative) and who were received adjuvant therapys with modern chemotherapy had a much greater improvement in their five-year disease-free survival rate (22.8 percent) than those patients with hormone sensitive tumors (ER-positive) who were treated with the same chemotherapy and tamoxifen (7 percent). The improvement in overall survival rate with the newer chemotherapy regimens was 16.7 percent for ER-negative patients and 4 percent for ER-positive patients.

"Our observations add to a growing body of evidence that breast cancer is not one homogeneous disease, but rather a disease with a number of subtypes and requires a variety of new therapy approaches," said Eric Winer, MD, the paper's senior author and director of Dana-Farber's Breast Oncology Center.

Winer and colleagues conducted a retrospective analysis of three large national breast cancer studies that collectively spanned 20 years and involved more than 6,600 patients to assess the cumulative benefits associated with contemporary chemotherapy regimens. These patients had been enrolled in three consecutive studies for patients with node-positive breast cancer conducted by the Cancer and Leukemia Group B, a National Cancer Institute funded cooperative group. They compared the disease-free and survival rates across the three studies for breast cancer patients with ER-negative tumors who were treated with chemotherapy. They did the same for patients with ER-positive tumors who were treated with chemotherapy and tamoxifen. The scientists then compared the rates between ER-negative and ER-positive breast cancer patients.........

Posted by: Janet      Permalink         Source