January 29, 2010, 8:08 AM CT

Change in mammography guidelines

The methodology and evidence behind a widely publicized change in national mammography guidelines is questionable, as per a review in the Journal of Diagnostic Medical Sonography (JDMS), published by SAGE.

In November 2009, the US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) published a report in the Annals of Internal Medicine discussing the screening techniques for the early detection of breast cancer. A few isolated portions of that report, regarding recommended changes for the use of mammography, were widely discussed in the media, and garnered tremendous public attention.

This new JDMS article provides an evidenced-based review of the work and recommendations contained in the USPSTF report and raises the question whether the controversial conclusions for breast cancer screening were supported by established scientific measurement and research standards. The JDMS review found low methodological scores in the USPSTF report, which may place in question the recommendations generated from the report.

The article concludes that, despite the report's depiction as a systematic review, the USPSTF report was actually just a review of literature, which reduces the overall scientific impact of the report to a much lower level in the hierarchy of evidence......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

January 5, 2010, 8:51 AM CT

Pomegranate to prevent breast cancer?

Eating fruit, such as pomegranates, that contain anti-aromatase phytochemicals reduces the occurence rate of hormone-dependent breast cancer, as per results of a study reported in the recent issue of Cancer Prevention Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.

Pomegranate is enriched in a series of compounds known as ellagitannins that, as shown in this study, appear to be responsible for the anti-proliferative effect of the pomegranate.

"Phytochemicals suppress estrogen production that prevents the proliferation of breast cancer cells and the growth of estrogen-responsive tumors," said principal investigator Shiuan Chen, Ph.D., director of the Division of Tumor Cell Biology and co-leader of the Breast Cancer Research Program at City of Hope in Duarte, Calif.

Prior research has shown that pomegranate juice punica granatum L is high in antioxidant activity, which is generally attributed to the fruit's high polyphenol content. Ellagic acid found in pomegranates inhibits aromatase, an enzyme that converts androgen to estrogen. Aromatase plays a key role in breast carcinogenesis; therefore, the growth of breast cancer is inhibited.

Chen, along with Lynn Adams, Ph.D., a research fellow at Beckman Research Institute of City of Hope, and his colleagues, reviewed whether phytochemicals in pomegranates can suppress aromatase and ultimately inhibit cancer growth......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

December 30, 2009, 8:15 AM CT

Acupuncture reduces hot flashes

Not only is acupuncture as effective as drug treatment at reducing hot flashes in patients with breast cancer, it has the added benefit of potentially increasing a woman's sex drive and improving her sense of well-being, as per a Henry Ford Hospital study.

Study results show that acupuncture, when in comparison to drug treatment, has a longer-lasting effect on the reduction of hot flashes and night sweats for women receiving hormone treatment for breast cancer therapy. Women also report that acupuncture improves their energy and clarity of thought.

The study, published online this week in the Journal of Oncology, is the first randomly controlled trial to compare acupuncture and drug treatment in this way.

"Acupuncture offers patients a safe, effective and durable therapy option for hot flashes, something that affects the majority of breast cancer survivors. In comparison to drug treatment, acupuncture actually has benefits, as opposed to more side effects," says study main author Eleanor Walker, M.D., division director of breast services in the Department of Radiation Oncology at Henry Ford Hospital.

As per the National Cancer Institute, one in eight women will develop breast cancer in her lifetime. For these women, conventional medical therapy involves chemotherapy and five years of hormone treatment. With such a long course of therapy, side effects of hormone treatment such as vasomotor symptoms hot flashes and night sweats can become a major cause of decreased quality of life, and even discontinuation of therapy......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

December 23, 2009, 8:05 AM CT

Improving mammogram accuracy

Members of a Syracuse University research team have shown that an obscure phenomenon called stochastic resonance (SR) can improve the clarity of signals in systems such as radar, sonar and even radiography, used in medical clinics to detect signs of breast cancer. It does this by adding carefully selected noise to the system.

The result has been a distinct improvement in the system's ability to correctly identify premalignant lesions, plus a 36 percent reduction in false positives. The inventors have developed a novel method of calculating precisely the correct type and level of noise to add to existing noise in radiography or a similar system.

"We see a broad spectrum of applications for this technology," says research assistant professor Hao Chen. "If a system's performance is unsatisfactory, we add noise to the system based on a specific algorithm that can significantly improve system performance".

A patent covering the technology has been issued to Chen, Distinguished Professor Pramod K. Varshney and research professor James Michels. All are linked to SU's L.C. Smith College of Engineering and Computer Science.

In mammography studies carried out by doctoral candidate Renbin Peng, the challenge was to identify clusters of micro-calcifications in breast tissue. These early signs of premalignant conditions average only 0.3 mm in size and offer only subtle contrast with surrounding tissue. In addition to improving detection of these lesions, the group has reduced false positives by more than a third......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

December 7, 2009, 9:32 PM CT

Spices halt growth of breast cancer stem cells

A newly released study finds that compounds derived from the spices turmeric and pepper could help prevent breast cancer by limiting the growth of stem cells, the small number of cells that fuel a tumor's growth.

Scientists at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center have observed that when the dietary compounds curcumin, which is derived from the Indian spice turmeric, and piperine, derived from black peppers, were applied to breast cells in culture, they decreased the number of stem cells while having no effect on normal differentiated cells.

"If we can limit the number of stem cells, we can limit the number of cells with potential to form tumors," says main author Madhuri Kakarala, M.D., Ph.D., R.D., clinical lecturer in internal medicine at the U-M Medical School and a research investigator at the VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System.

Cancer stem cells are the small number of cells within a tumor that fuel the tumor's growth. Current chemotherapies do not work against these cells, which is why cancer recurs and spreads. Scientists think that eliminating the cancer stem cells is key to controlling cancer. In addition, decreasing the number of normal stem cells - unspecialized cells that can give rise to any type of cell in that organ - can decrease the risk of cancer......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

December 2, 2009, 8:18 AM CT

Annual screening with breast ultrasound or MRI

Results of a large-scale clinical trial presented today at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) provide the first good evidence of the benefit of annual screening ultrasound for women with dense breasts who are at elevated risk for breast cancer. In addition, the study confirmed that MRI is highly sensitive in depicting early breast cancer.

"We observed that annual screening with ultrasound in addition to mammography significantly improves the detection of early breast cancer," said lead researcher Wendie A. Berg, M.D., Ph.D., breast imaging specialist at American Radiology Services, Johns Hopkins Green Spring Station in Lutherville, Md., "and that significantly more early breast cancer can be found when MRI is performed, even after combined screening with both ultrasound and mammography. However, both ultrasound and MRI increase the risk of false-positive findings".

Women who are at high risk for breast cancer need to begin screening at a younger age, because they often develop cancer earlier than women at average risk. However, women below age 50 are more likely to have dense breast tissue, which can limit the effectiveness of mammography as a screening tool.

Multicenter trials have shown that MRI enables radiologists to accurately identify tumors missed by mammography and ultrasound. The American Cancer Society recommends that some groups of women with a high risk of developing breast cancer should be screened with MRI in addition to their yearly mammogram beginning at age 30. However, MRI is not for everyone......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

November 30, 2009, 8:03 AM CT

Elastography reduces breast biopsies

Elastography is an effective, convenient technique that, when added to breast ultrasound, helps distinguish malignant breast lesions from non-malignant results, as per a research study that's ongoing presented today at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).

When mammography yields suspicious findings, physicians often use ultrasound to obtain additional information. However, ultrasound has the potential to result in more biopsies because of its relatively low specificity, or inability to accurately distinguish malignant lesions from non-malignant ones. Approximately 80 percent of breast lesions biopsied turn out to be benign, as per the American Cancer Society.

"There's a lot of room to improve specificity with ultrasound, and elastography can help us do that," said the study's main author, Stamatia V. Destounis, M.D., a diagnostic radiologist at Elizabeth Wende Breast Care, a large, community-based breast imaging center in Rochester, N.Y. "It's an easy way to eliminate needle biopsy for something that's probably benign".

Elastography improves ultrasound's specificity by utilizing conventional ultrasound imaging to measure the compressibility and mechanical properties of a lesion. Since malignant tumors tend to be stiffer than surrounding healthy tissue or cysts, a more compressible lesion on elastography is less likely to be cancerous......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

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