December 11, 2006, 9:28 PM CT

New Antibody Test On Mice with Breast Cancer

Herceptin, a monoclonal antibody is well known to physicians and patients with breast cancer. It has been described as the miracle drug. Now a new monoclonal antibody developed by researchers at the University at Buffalo has been shown to extend significantly the survival of mice with human breast-cancer tumors and to inhibit the cancer's spread to the lungs in the animals by more than 50 percent.

The antibody, named JAA-F11, targets a particular disaccharide, an antigen known as TF-Ag, which aids the adhesion and spread of certain cancer cells. While the antibody did not kill the cancer cells, it blocked stages of cancer-cell growth that allow the cells to adhere to organ tissue, the research showed.

Results of the research appeared in the November 2006 issue of the journal Neoplasia.

Mice with breast-cancer tumors that received the antibody had a median survival time of 72 days, compared to 57 days for the animals that did not receive JAA-F11, the study found. In addition, exposing cultures of tumor cells to the antibody inhibited cell growth by a statistically significant 16 percent.

Kate Rittenhouse-Olson, Ph.D., associate professor of clinical and laboratory sciences in the UB School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, is senior author on the study.........

Posted by: Betsy      Permalink         Source

November 30, 2006, 8:59 PM CT

Face The Sun

Three years ago I watched helplessly as my wife lost a close childhood friend to breast cancer after she was originally misdiagnosed, and told she was too young to get breast cancer. Diane courageously battled the illness, enduring both mainstream and alternative therapys, all the while reminding those around her of the precious nature of each day of life. In an effort to raise awareness about breast cancer, and to pay tribute to Diane, I spent the years since her passing writing a screen play which follows a young woman and family dealing with breast cancer. Through the recently formed, Sunflower Pictures, that script is now in what is referred to as the "pre-production phase".

The response to the story has been very strong. In support of the film, and to coincide with October being Breast Cancer Awareness Month, we've launched a website that not only talks about the film, but provides women with the information they need to be properly informed about this terrible disease. The film website is www.facethesunmovie.com Take a moment to visit the site, watch the videos, visit the linked websites and send the message to your friends reminding them of the importance of regular mammograms. Your support of this project is critical to ensuring that women of all ages understand that breast cancer isn't an illness that just affects other people. Furthermore, when "Face the Sun" is released theatrically a percentage of the net profits will be donated to breast cancer research.Let us know what you think of the website, and what you think of the project. I look forward to hearing from you soon. Take care.........

Posted by: Mike Moroz      Permalink         Source

November 13, 2006, 8:48 PM CT

Cancer In Women With Rare Breast Condition

Women whose mammograms reveal a suspicious lesion need a needle biopsy to confirm or rule out cancer. But if that biopsy reveals only abnormal - not cancerous - cells, is a more extensive evaluation necessary?

Yes, suggests a new study by doctors at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. They looked at the medical records of women whose initial core-needle breast biopsies found rare, yet non-cancerous breast conditions: atypical lobular hyperplasia (ALH) or lobular carcinoma-in-situ (LCIS). These lesions are known to increase a woman's risk of breast cancer, but what the researchers found was surprising.

Follow-up surgical biopsies in which more breast tissue was removed found that up to 25% of the women actually had cancer in addition to their high-risk breast conditions. Most of the cancers were invasive, meaning the tumors had penetrated normal breast tissue and would require treatment. None of the tumors had spread beyond the breast.

"This is very significant," explains lead author Julie A. Margenthaler, M.D., assistant professor of surgery and a breast surgeon at the Siteman Cancer Center at Washington University School of Medicine and Barnes-Jewish Hospital. "We now know that we can't assume that women with ALH or LCIS are cancer free".........

Posted by: Betsy      Permalink         Source

October 30, 2006, 7:03 PM CT

Negative Brca Test Doesn't Guarantee Safety

In women with a strong family history of breast cancer a negative BRCA test does not necessarily guarantee safety from breast cancer. These women are still at increased risk of developing the disease as per findings from the latest research. These women should start breast cancer screening at earlier age from 35 to 40 years.

Researchers explain that defects in the BRCA genes account for only around 5% of all diagnosed breast cancers in developed countries.

In this study published of the 277 women, 190 had breast cancer, 48 had ovarian cancer, and 33 had both. Six were free of the disease.

Among the 531 living female relatives who were tested for the genetic faults, almost half (49%) tested negative. Of these, 28 developed breast cancer and four developed ovarian cancer.

Among the 184 first-degree relatives testing negative, 4 different BRCA1 and 2 "phenocopies" were identified, accounting for around one in four test results.

A phenocopy is when a patient develops the condition that a particular gene predisposes them to, but they test negative for the inherited genetic fault. This is likely to be due to other genetic variants (modifier genes) that mimic the physiological changes produced by that specific gene fault.........

Posted by: Betsy      Permalink

October 30, 2006, 5:11 PM CT

Breast Cancer Survivors Face Higher Suicide Rates

The burden is not over for breast cancer patients even after the battle with breast cancer is won. A new study suggests that breast cancer survivors have an increased risk committing suicide compared to women in the general population. Survivors of breast cancer have as much as 37 percent increased risk of committing suicide compared to other women and this increased risk of suicide persist for more than 25 years after the diagnosis of breast cancer.

These study findings were published in a recent issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. There have been previous studies on this topic but none have undertaken such a long-term study of the subject and none of the studies included women from the United States of America.

This conclusion is from analysis of a large pool of data involving 723,810 breast cancer survivors who were diagnosed between 1953 and 2001 and were included in population-based cancer registries in the United States and Scandinavia.

The researchers have found that during follow-up through 2002, a total of 836 women committed suicide. Compared with the general population the women with breast cancer had a suicide rate of 4.1 per 100,000 women per year.

Even after a period of 25 years, breast cancer survivors still had a 35 percent increased risk of committing suicide. Suicide rates were higher among African American women, with a 2.88-fold elevated risk. Researchers noted that the risk of committing suicide increases with increasing stage of breast cancer.........

Posted by: Betsy      Permalink

October 29, 2006, 7:21 PM CT

Breast Cancer Chemo Drugs And Cognitive Dysfunction

Chemotherapy drugs might cause cognitive dysfunction on the recipients as per new research findings. A new study on mice has confirmed what many cancer patients receiving treatment have often complained about a decline in their memory and other cognitive functions, often characterized as "chemobrain".

This study, led by researchers Dr. Gordon Winocur, in collaboration with Drs. Ian Tannock and Janette Vardy, was conducted at Trent University. The findings appear in the September 2006 issue of Pharmacology, Biochemistry and Behavior (Vol. 85, Issue 1), which will be available online in the next week. The results were presented at a workshop held in conjunction with the 8th World Congress of Psycho-Oncology in Venice last week.

"In our study, we identified learning and memory deficits in the mild to moderate range in the drug-treated mice in comparison to the controls," says Dr. Winocur.

"That the deficits were relatively small is encouraging. It's important that cancer patients continue with these drugs and know that if they experience mild to moderate impairments in their cognitive functions, this level of change is potentially manageable".

While there is growing evidence from studies of cancer patients on chemotherapy that the chemobrain effect does exist, a number of of the studies have suffered from methodological limitations. These include small samples, less than adequate controls and failure to account for other factors, including disease-related complications and stress, which could affect performance.........

Posted by: Betsy      Permalink         Source

October 27, 2006, 5:12 AM CT

Women With Mental Disorders And Mammograms

Women with mental disorders are less likely to have screening mammograms than women without mental illness, although.

the nature of the mental illness does play a role, as per a large study published by Indiana University School of Medicine and Richard Roudebush VA Health Services Center for Excellence scientists in the recent issue of Journal of General Internal Medicine. Previous to this study, little was known about whether the type or severity of mental illness influences receipt of preventive services such as mammograms.

"Eventhough women with mental disorders are less likely to receive mammography than women who do not have mental disorders, we observed that both the type and severity of mental illness does influence the receipt of mammograms. Women with psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia are significantly less likely to receive mammograms than women in the general population. However, women with mild depression do not differ markedly. But, as depression severity increases, so does the likelihood that women will not receive needed screening," said senior author Caroline Carney Doebbeling, M.D., M.Sc., associate professor of psychiatry and medicine at the I.U. School of Medicine. She is also a Regenstrief Institute, Inc. research scientist and director of the IU.........

Posted by: Betsy      Permalink         Source

October 17, 2006, 9:48 PM CT

Regular Exercise Keeps Breast-cancer Away

Postmenopausal women who want to significantly decrease their breast-cancer risk would be wise to exercise regularly and keep their weight within a normal range for their height, as per new findings from the Women's Health Initiative would be reported in the journal Obesity.

The multicenter team of researchers, led by Anne McTiernan, M.D., Ph.D., of Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, observed that women who had the lowest body-mass index, or BMI, and the highest physical-activity levels had the lowest levels of circulating estrogens, sex hormones that can fuel breast-cancer growth.

Specifically, they found a significant decrease in the two most common, biologically active forms of estrogen, estrone and estradiol, among the most active, lean women studied. The scientists observed that women with high BMI and low physical-activity had mean estrogen concentrations that were 50 percent to 100 percent higher than that of women with low BMI and high activity levels.

"Women with high levels of estrogens have a two-to-four-times-higher risk of breast cancer than women with very low levels," said McTiernan, a member of the Hutchinson Center's Public Health Sciences Division and co-investigator of the Women's Health Initiative Clinical Coordinating Center, which is based at the Center. "If a woman can keep her own natural estrogens lower after menopause, it is probably going to be beneficial in terms of reducing her risk of breast cancer."........

Posted by: Betsy      Permalink         Source

October 17, 2006, 5:02 AM CT

Older Breast Cancer Patients May Be Under-treated

Elderly patients with breast cancer who received care in a community hospital setting may have been under-diagnosed, under-staged and under-treated, according to a report in the recent issue of Archives of Surgery, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

The number of older breast cancer patients has increased along with overall elderly population, according to background information in the article. About half of breast cancer patients are older than 65 years and 35 percent are older than 70; 77 percent of breast cancer deaths occur in women older than 55. Choosing the appropriate treatment for older patients is a challenge, because many have other serious illnesses in addition to their cancer that may threaten their health and shorten their lives. Questions remain about the best screening protocols for elderly women, as well. Some current guidelines suggest that women stop having mammograms at age 70, while others provide no upper limit.

David A. Litvak, M.D., then of Michigan State University, Lansing, and now at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center, Orange County, Calif., and Rajeev Arora, M.D., used a tumor registry database to identify 354 women age 70 or older who were diagnosed with breast cancer between 1992 and 2002 at a community hospital. The researchers studied the group of women as a whole and also divided them into three age groups for analysis: ages 70 to 74 (136 patients), 75 to 79 (115 patients) and 80 or older (103 patients).........

Posted by: Betsy      Permalink         Source

October 17, 2006, 4:58 AM CT

Vitamin D Can Fight Breast Cancer

Vitamin D may help curb breast cancer progression, according to a study published recently in the Journal of Clinical Pathology.

The authors, from Imperial College London, measured the levels of vitamin D in the blood serum of 279 women with invasive breast cancer. The disease was in its early stages in 204 of the women, and advanced in the remaining 75.

The results showed that women with early stage disease had significantly higher levels of vitamin D (15 to 184 mmol/litre) than the women in the advanced stages of the disease (16 to 146 mmol/litre).

The authors say that the exact reasons for the disparity are not clear, nor is it known whether the lowered levels of vitamin D among those with advanced disease are a cause or a consequence of the cancer itself. However, the researchers' results, taken together with results from previous studies, lead them to believe that lowered levels of vitamin D may promote the progression of the disease to its advanced stages.

Laboratory studies have shown that vitamin D stops cancer cells from dividing and enhances cancer cell death. Vitamin D sufficiency and exposure to sunlight has been shown to reduce the risk of developing breast cancer. The body produces its own vitamin D in the skin when it is exposed to sunlight. The vitamin is also found in certain foods, including eggs and fatty fish.........

Posted by: Betsy      Permalink         Source