October 29, 2007, 10:21 PM CT

Extra radiation dose prevents breast cancer return

Women 40 years and younger with early-stage breast cancer who receive an additional high dose of radiation (boost dose) after undergoing breast-conserving surgery (lumpectomy) and standard radiation therapy are almost twice as likely to be free of cancer 10 years after therapy in comparison to those who dont receive the boost dose, as per a large European study presented at the Plenary I session on October 29, 2007, at the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncologys 49th Annual Meeting in Los Angeles. Eventhough younger women benefitted most from an extra dose of radiation, the findings show that women of all ages who had a boost dose of radiation after standard therapy were more likely to be cancer-free over a 10-year period.

The study involved 5,318 women who underwent lumpectomies and whole breast radiation therapy as part of their breast conserving treatment for Stage I and Stage II breast cancer and were reviewed 10 years later. Scientists wanted to determine if a boost dose of radiation following this therapy would decrease the risk of breast cancer recurrence. In addition to this, a sub-group of 1,725 patients were reviewed to find out the highest risk factors for localized breast cancer recurrence.

The study observed that the largest benefits of the boost dose of radiation after standard breast conserving therapy is seen in young women, who have a higher risk to breast cancer recurrence to begin with, said Harry Bartelink, M.D., Ph.D., the senior author of the study and professor and radiation oncologist at The Netherlands Cancer Institute at Antoni van Leeuwenhoek Hospital in The Netherlands......... Posted by: Betsy      Read more         Source

October 28, 2007, 2:13 PM CT

IMRT: Less dermatitis with breast cancer treatment

All women treated with radiation treatment for breast cancer are at risk of developing dermatitisa sometimes-painful skin condition caused by radiation as it makes its way through the skin to the tumor area and tissue within the breast. But scientists at Fox Chase Cancer Center say women being treated with IMRT (intensity-modulated radiation treatment) are less likely to have serious dermatitis. The research was presented today at the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncologys 49th Annual Meeting in Los Angeles.

A reddening of the skin, dermatitis is often likened to a bad sunburn. It can begin in the first weeks of therapy as mild redness, dryness or itching of the skin and progress to a more intense skin reaction by the last week of radiation. When dermatitis is acute and severe, causing peeling, it is can be extremely painful, interfering with normal life activities and sometimes interrupting therapy.

Dermatitis is a major quality-of-life concern, said Gary Freedman, M.D., a radiation oncologist at Fox Chase Cancer Center who studies the side effects of breast cancer therapy. It can be so painful that wearing a bra or snug-fitting clothing isnt possible. In the most severe cases, the skin will actually bleed or be at risk of infection......... Posted by: Betsy      Read more         Source

October 11, 2007, 10:34 PM CT

Breast cancer awareness for cardiovascular awareness

Women who overcome breast cancer have every reason to celebrate. But a heart filled with joy may also be a heart damaged by life-saving cancer therapies, a growing body of research shows.

Most breast cancer therapies today including new therapys still under development increase long-term risk of cardiovascular disease, said Lee W. Jones, Ph.D., an exercise physiologist and assistant professor in the Department of Surgery at Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC. We dont know exactly how large the added risk is, but we believe its substantial. Recent gains in breast-cancer-specific survival could be markedly diminished by an increase in the long-term risk of cardiovascular death.

In an article reported in the October 9, 2007, issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology (JACC), Dr. Jones and colleagues call for taking the long view in breast cancer treatmentfocusing not just on the immediate cancer threat but also on long-term cardiovascular health.

There are millions of American women living with breast cancer, said Pamela S. Douglas, M.D., chief of cardiology at Duke and a co-author of the JACC paper. Its important that they dont squander their second lease on life.

Breast cancer is the most common form of cancer among American women, accounting for more than 200,000 new cases each year. Thanks to new and better therapies, death rates from breast cancer are falling dramaticallyby nearly 24 percent between 1990 and 2000, for example. That means that more women than ever before will live for years with the cardiovascular effects of cancer treatment......... Posted by: Betsy      Read more         Source

October 8, 2007, 8:56 AM CT

New gene linked to breast cancer

Scientists in a multicenter international study have identified a new gene that, if mutated, may increase a womans risk of breast cancer by more than a third.

Further, the scientists observed that the gene, HMMR, interacts with the well-known breast cancer gene BRCA1. Alternations in either gene cause genetic instability and interfere with cell division, which could be a path to breast cancer developing. This leads scientists to not just a single gene, but a pathway that may be a potential target for treating or detecting breast cancer.

Results of the study appear in the advance online edition of Nature Genetics.

HMMR is mutated in about 10 percent of the population. Mutations in the two main genes involved in breast cancer susceptibility, BRCA1 and BRCA2, occur in about one of every 300 individuals, or less than 1 percent of the population.

If we can identify variations of genes that are more common in the population that increase breast cancer risk, then targeting that gene for early detection or therapy will have a greater impact, says Kristen Stevens, M.P.H., a doctoral student in epidemiology at the University of Michigan School of Public Health and one of the lead authors on the paper.

The study was an international collaboration with scientists from Spain, Israel and several centers in the United States, including the U-M Comprehensive Cancer Center......... Posted by: Betsy      Read more         Source

October 2, 2007, 10:26 PM CT

Dietary calcium to prevent the spread of breast cancer

A strong skeleton is less likely to be penetrated by metastasizing cancer cells, so a fortified glass of milk might be the way to block cancers spread, as per scientists at the ANZAC Research Institute in Concord, Australia. Using a mouse model of breast cancer metastasis, the scientists observed that a calcium deficiency may increase the tendency of advanced breast cancer to target bone. Dietary calcium, they reason, might help prevent the spread of breast cancer to bone and serve as an adjuvant therapy during treatment.

Their findings are presented in the Oct. 1 issue of Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.

As per the researchers, about 70 percent of patients who develop advanced breast cancer will have secondary tumors in the bone. The spread of cancer to bones leads to cellular processes that physically break down existing bone, leading to further pain and illness. In fact, the breakdown of bone and subsequent bone re-growth forms what senior author Colin R. Dunstan, Ph.D., terms a vicious cycle that turns bone into an environment conducive to cancer growth.

To better understand the role of bone turnover in the spread of cancer, Dunstan and his team compared the effects of a low- and high-calcium diet in mice. They observed that dietary calcium deficiency independent of the chemical factors that control turnover was correlation to a significantly higher increase in cancer cell proliferation and the total proportion of bone that had been penetrated......... Posted by: Betsy      Read more         Source

October 1, 2007, 10:24 PM CT

New methods of beating breast cancer

University of Manchester scientists will reveal new ways of controlling and treating breast cancer at the National Cancer Research Institute conference in Birmingham today (Monday 1 October 2007).

Dr Robert Clarke and his team at the University's Cancer Studies research group have been investigating human breast cancers for the presence of stem cells - cells that generate new tumours and can cause the cancer to recur - in a series of studies funded by the charity Breast Cancer Campaign.

One third of women who are successfully treated for breast cancer find that the disease recurs some years later because some of these cancer cells survive the therapy and begin to grow again.

The team's research into these 'breast cancer stem cells' revealed that the cells are stimulated by the Notch gene. The team, who published the study in Journal of the National Cancer Institute, is now hoping to develop new drug therapies to target this gene and thus stop the growth of any surviving breast cancer stem cells.

One drug that is known to attack Notch is already used for the therapy of Alzheimer's Disease so, having undergone health and safety checks, its clinical trial for use on patients with breast cancer could be speeded up and lead to a therapy in hospital clinics within a few years. Herceptin, by contrast, took more than 15 years to go from the discovery of its gene target to therapy......... Posted by: Betsy      Read more         Source

September 25, 2007, 9:45 PM CT

Breast cancer survivors optimistic

The majority of breast cancer survivors consider themselves stronger after having the disease, as per new survey results released recently. However, the data also suggest womens knowledge about actions they can take to lessen the likelihood of recurrence is surprisingly low.

The survey, which was commissioned by AstraZeneca and conducted by Harris Interactive, consisted of interviews with 543 women in the United States who had been diagnosed with breast cancer. The vast majority (92 percent) of these women reported a positive change in their lifestyles since being diagnosed with the disease and nearly two-thirds (63 percent) said they are hopeful and optimistic about the future. Nearly nine in 10 (87 percent) said that having breast cancer made them a stronger person and about four in five (83 percent) said they were better able to put their lives in perspective. Due to the significant focus on early detection and recent medical and scientific advances, women are surviving breast cancer, remaining disease-free and living longer and healthier lives.

The survey also showed that breast cancer survivors are more likely to identify a great deal with other women who have had the disease (66 percent) than with people of the same ethnic/racial background (41 percent) or religious beliefs (40 percent). The survivorship community continues to flourish with more than 2.3 million breast cancer survivors in the U.S. today, making this the largest group of cancer survivors......... Posted by: Betsy      Read more         Source

September 6, 2007, 9:29 PM CT

Genomic Guides To Breast Cancer Treatment

Three genomic tests separately predict the likelihood that a patient's breast cancer will reoccur after surgery without additional therapy, and the cancer's vulnerability to chemotherapy or hormone treatment, scientists at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center report at the first American Society of Clinical Oncology ASCO Breast Cancer Symposium Sept. 7-8 in San Francisco.

Each predictor - of prognosis, of sensitivity to chemotherapy and sensitivity to hormone treatment - is independent of the others, providing unique information to physicians and patients considering therapy options, says W. Fraser Symmans, M.D., professor in M. D. Anderson's Department of Pathology.

"Existing genomic tests for breast cancer provide information about future risk in general, but not the likely benefit of each therapy option separate from a patient's overall prognosis if no therapy followed surgery. It is important to independently assess these three variables," Symmans says.

Symmans and Lajos Pusztai, M.D., Ph.D., associate professor in M. D. Anderson's Department of Breast Medical Oncology will present two research updates on the genomic predictors, which can be reported from a single microarray analysis of a needle biopsy of a patient's breast cancer......... Posted by: Betsy      Read more         Source

August 25, 2007, 7:20 AM CT

New link between estrogen and breast cancer

The female sex hormone estrogen turns on a gene associated with breast cancer, as per new research by Brisbane scientists.

The cancer biology team from UQ's Diamantina Institute for Cancer, Immunology and Metabolic Medicine, believe their finding will help explain the link between breast cancer and high levels of estrogen.

What we've shown is that the ability of estrogen to switch this gene on is important for the growth of breast cancer cells, Diamantina cancer biology research leader Professor Tom Gonda said.

The gene they studied, known as MYB, is found in about 70 percent of all breast cancers and is one of several dozen genes called oncogenes that promote cancer growth.

What's important in breast cancer is the ability of estrogen to turn on MYB rather than there being a mutation in the gene itself, Professor Gonda said.

He said the next step was to take the results, which come from isolated cancer cells grown in the laboratory, and test them in laboratory mice that are a better model for human patients.

We're trying to show directly that MYB can induce malignant changes in normal breast cells.

Professor Gonda and colleagues at UQ worked with scientists in Melbourne, Adelaide and the United States and published their findings this month in the prestigious scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA......... Posted by: Betsy      Read more         Source

August 21, 2007, 6:38 PM CT

Acrylamide not linked to breast cancer

Foods that contain acrylamide are unlikely to cause breast cancer in women, according to preliminary results of a new study involving 100,000 U.S. women. The finding, the largest epidemiological study to date exploring the possible link between acrylamide and cancer in humans, was described today at the 234^th national meeting of the American Chemical Society.

At levels consumed in the diet, it appears unlikely that acrylamide in foods is related to breast cancer risk, says study leader Lorelei Mucci, ScD, an epidemiologist at Channing Labs at Brigham and Womens Hospital and Harvard School of Public Health in Boston. In prior work, her group also examined dietary acrylamide and risk of cancer of the colon, rectum, bladder and kidney, and similarly found no association. Although we do not rule out that very high levels of acrylamide could cause cancer, it appears that at the levels found in the diet, it is unlikely.

Acrylamide has been detected in many widely-consumed foods, ranging from French fries to coffee. The highest levels are in fried and baked products such as potato chips and other snack foods. Although classified as a probable human carcinogen on the basis of animal studies, there is currently no consensus on dietary acrylamides risks to human health. With food safety authorities in Europe taking steps to curb acrylamide, controversy has arisen over whether similar action should be taken in the U. S......... Posted by: Betsy      Read more         Source