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

June 10, 2009, 8:44 PM CT

Tamoxifen resistance

Tamoxifen is a widely used and highly successful drug in the treatment of breast cancer, though resistance to tamoxifen is still a concern in recurrent disease (affecting 25-35% of patients), since therapy resistant metastatic tumor cells are a major cause of death. In a study in this month's Molecular and Cellular Proteomics, researchers have uncovered a protein profile that may accurately predict whether a cancer will be tamoxifen resistant.

Arzu Umar and colleagues in the Netherlands and Washington examined thousands of tumor cells taken from 51 tamoxifen therapy-sensitive and therapy-resistant tumors using a combination of proteomic and mass-spectrometry approaches. Their analysis revealed a set of 100 proteins that were expressed at different abundance levels in the two tumor groups, highlighting a potential profile for tamoxifen resistance.

In addition, they analyzed the most significantly altered protein, called extracellular matrix metalloproteinase inducer, or EMMPRIN, in a separate set 156 breast tumor tissue samples. EMMPRIN levels were higher in tamoxifen-resistant tumors and significantly associated with an earlier tumor progression following first line tamoxifen treatment and poor clinical outcome, suggesting EMMPRIN may be a reliable marker for highly aggressive breast cancer......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

May 22, 2009, 5:03 AM CT

African-American women with advanced breast cancer

A newly released study finds that nearly one in four African American women with late stage breast cancer refused chemotherapy and radiation treatment, potentially life saving therapies. Reported in the July 1, 2009 issue of CANCER, a peer-evaluated journal of the American Cancer Society, the study indicates that more efforts are needed to ensure that all women with breast cancer receive appropriate care.

In the United States, African American women have almost twice the rate of advanced (stage III) breast cancer than white women. To get a better sense of the tumor characteristics and medical care of these patients, scientists led by Monica Rizzo, M.D., of the Emory University School of Medicine and Emory University's Avon Comprehensive Breast Cancer Center at Grady evaluated stage III breast cancer data from 2000 to 2006 from an inner city hospital in Atlanta that serves a large African American population.

The researchers identified 107 cases of stage III breast cancers diagnosed and/or treated at this hospital over the six years of study. Approximately 87 percent of these cases were in African American women. Triple negative tumors accounted for 29 percent of the cases. These cancers do not express the estrogen receptor, the progesterone receptor or the human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) and therefore do not respond well to therapies that target these proteins (such as trastuzumab, or Herceptin, which blocks HER2)......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

May 20, 2009, 5:22 AM CT

Post menopausal hormone replacement and breast cancer

The risk of developing breast cancer due to taking hormone replacement treatment may be the same for women with a family history of the disease and without a family history, a University of Rochester Medical Center study concluded.

The study, published online this week in the journal Epidemiology, adds to the evolving picture of what factors, either alone or in combination, boost breast cancer risk among postmenopausal women. It also refutes the notion, held by a number of in the medical community, that a familial predisposition to breast cancer enhances the carcinogenic effects of estrogen.

"Eventhough we know that family history is a risk factor, we don't know yet what it is about family history that conveys the risk," said Robert E. Gramling, M.D., D.Sc., assistant professor of Family Medicine and of Community and Preventive Medicine at URMC. "Some have proposed that it might be an increased sensitivity to estrogen, but our data did not support that notion. In fact, this study suggests the causal pathway based on family history is probably not estrogen sensitivity".

Scientists analyzed data from the Women's Health Initiative randomized trial, which followed 16,608 postmenopausal women, ages 50 to 79, who took hormone replacement treatment (HRT) or a placebo pill between 1993 and 2002. Among the participants, 349 cases of invasive breast cancer occurred during a mean follow-up period of 5.6 years......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

May 20, 2009, 5:11 AM CT

Predicting breast cancer outcome

Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center scientists have uncovered a gene signature that may help predict clinical outcomes in certain types of breast cancer.

In the Journal of Clinical Investigation, Harold (Hal) Moses, M.D., and his colleagues report that this gene signature which is linked to the transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-β) signaling pathway correlates with reduced relapse-free survival in breast cancer patients, particularly in those with estrogen receptor (ER) positive tumors.

The results suggest that assessing TGF-β signaling appears to be a useful aid in determining breast cancer prognosis and in guiding therapy. The work also sheds light on how TGF-β affects tumor growth and progression.

TGF-β is a well-known regulator of tumor growth and metastasis. In the early stages of cancer, TGF-β signaling inhibits tumor growth. But for unclear reasons, most tumors eventually lose their sensitivity to TGF-β, and the once-beneficial protein begins promoting tumor growth and metastasis during later cancer stages. Loss of TGF-β signaling has been associated with tumor progression in human breast cancer.

To identify mechanisms by which TGF-β regulates tumor progression and metastasis, Brian Bierie, Ph.D., a former graduate student in the Moses lab, developed mammary cancer cell lines from mice lacking the TGF-β type II receptor (TβRII), an important component of the TGF-β signaling pathway......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

May 13, 2009, 5:19 AM CT

Gene In Breast Cancer Pathway

Researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University have discovered how a gene crucial in triggering the spread of breast cancer is turned on and off. The findings could help predict whether breast tumors will metastasize and also reveal potential drug targets for preventing metastasis. The study will appear in the May 20th online edition of the Journal of Cell Science.

A few years ago, Einstein researchers discovered a gene called ZBP1 (zipcode binding protein 1), which helps cells to move, grow and organize spatially. "ZBP1 is very active in the developing embryo but largely silent in adult tissues," says Robert H. Singer, Ph.D., professor and co-chair of anatomy and structural biology and co-director of the Gruss-Lipper Biophotonics Center at Einstein. He is one of ZBP1's discoverers and leader of the current study.

Scientists have subsequently observed that ZBP1 is reactivated in several types of cancer, including breast, colorectal, and non-small cell lung cancers; but the gene is silenced in metastasizing cancer cells, as was shown by Dr. Singer and another Einstein scientist, John Condeelis, Ph.D., who also is co-chair of anatomy and structural biology and co-director of the Gruss-Lipper Biophotonics Center at Einstein. The purpose of the current study was to find how the ZBP1 gene is activated and silenced and how it influences the spread of breast cancer......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

April 24, 2009, 5:19 AM CT

New breast radiation device for breast cancer patients

A newly released study shows that the SAVI applicator, a small, expandable device inserted inside the breast to deliver partial breast irradiation, carries a low infection risk, a potential complication of such devices. The research, led by radiation oncologists and surgeons at the Moores UCSD Cancer Center and Fort Myers, Florida-based 21st Century Oncology, also indicates that other complications such as seromas, pockets of fluid that build with the use of internal radiation devices are unlikely to occur.

That's good news for those women with early-stage breast cancer who opt to have such devices inserted for their radiation treatment after breast-sparing lumpectomy surgery, said Cate Yashar, MD, associate professor of radiation oncology at the UC San Diego School of Medicine and chief of breast and gynecological radiation services at the Moores UCSD Cancer Center. Their use is increasing, she added, noting that the Moores UCSD Cancer Center was one of the first medical facilities in the country to offer SAVI.

SAVI, which consists of flexible catheters through which radiation is given, provides customized radiation treatment and minimizes exposure to healthy tissue after a woman has undergone a lumpectomy to remove a malignant tumor. Radiation specialists sometimes decide to give women internal radiation a process called brachytherapy with the goal of giving concentrated doses of radiation to areas of concern while avoiding healthy tissue......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

April 22, 2009, 5:21 AM CT

Breast cancer patients, emotional quality and exercise

The first study to monitor physical activity in patients with breast cancer for five years suggests that patients with greater depressive symptoms and a lower emotional quality of life are less likely to exercise as part of their recovery than are patients reporting less distress.

While the findings may seem intuitive, they also add weight to a growing pool of data supporting the need to concentrate on patients with breast cancer' emotional health soon after they are diagnosed, scientists say.

Overall, the women as a group increased their physical activity during the first 18 months after diagnosis and therapy, but then their physical activity gradually declined over the remaining 3 1/2 years.

Poor physical health also was linked to less physical activity over all five years. Conversely, family support appeared to slow the decline in physical activity over the last 42 months of the study.

Depressive symptoms can include low mood, low energy, sleep difficulty and a lack of interest in, or withdrawal from, normal activities. Emotional quality of health is a broad composite measure of social and psychological factors, including mood, tension and the presence or lack of social support.

"This suggests that stress in the form of depressive symptoms is correlation to actual health behavior over a sustained period of time," said Charles Emery, professor of psychology at Ohio State University and main author of the study......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

March 19, 2009, 5:22 AM CT

Biopsy of recurrent breast cancer may alter treatment

For women with recurrent breast cancer, the therapy the doctor chooses is commonly based on the properties of their original breast cancer. A group from Toronto has recently completed the world's first study that compared original breast cancer tumors with a biopsy of suspected tumors that recurred elsewhere in the body.

Scientists observed that the biopsy resulted in 20% of the women having a significant change in their therapy. In some cases, this was a change in drug therapy and in others, the biopsy showed the woman did not actually have an advanced cancer, but a non-malignant condition.

"The results show that cancers may change over time and not respond to therapy that was appropriate for the original cancer," says principal investigator Dr. Mark Clemons, a medical oncologist specializing in breast cancer in the Princess Margaret Hospital Cancer Program, University Health Network (UHN).

"These early findings are leading us in a new direction as we understand more about why some women don't respond to therapy. This knowledge will help us in our quest to always deliver the right therapy, to the right patient, at the right time".

The findings are published online today in the Annals of Oncology, Oxford University Press (Doi:10.1093/annonc/mdp028)......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

March 16, 2009, 8:08 PM CT

Obese woman and breast cancer risk

greater risk of breast cancer by not undergoing regular screening. As per new research by Dr. Nisa Maruthur and her team from The John Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, USA, seriously obese women are significantly less likely to say they have undergone a recent mammography than normal weight women, particularly if they are white. Maruthur's findings are published online this week in Springer's Journal of General Internal Medicine.

Breast cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death among women in the US. Mammography screening has been proven to reduce the number of deaths from breast cancer; current guidelines recommend that women over the age of 40 undergo a mammography every couple of years. Obesity is also an important risk factor for both the development of, and death from, postmenopausal breast cancer.

Maruthur and his colleagues conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of 17 studies comprising over 276,000 participants, to look at whether overweight and obese women are less likely to have had a recent mammography than normal weight women. They also looked at the differences in mammography take-up between white and black obese women in three of the studies. They observed that severely obese women were 20 percent less likely to have had a recent mammography than normal weight women. However, this was not the case among black women......... Posted by: JoAnn      Read more         Source

February 25, 2009, 6:25 AM CT

Goserelin improves survival in breast cancer

Goserelin, a lutenizing hormone-releasing hormone agonist, reduces the long-term risk of disease recurrence and deaths in premenopausal women with early breast cancer who did not take tamoxifen, as per trial data published in the February 24 online issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

Systematic reviews have shown that lutenizing hormone-releasing hormone agonists, including goserelin, reduce the risk of disease recurrence and death due to breast cancer in premenopausal women. However the long-term impact of goserelin was not known, especially compared to women who did or did not take tamoxifen.

Women with breast cancer were randomly assigned to take goserelin (Zoladex), tamoxifen, both agents, or neither drug for two years in the Zoladex in Premenopausal Patients study. In this analysis, which included 2,706 women, Allan Hackshaw, of the Cancer Research UK Trials Centre at University College London, and his colleagues examined the long-term impact of the agents on various outcomes, including the risk of the cancer returning and the risk of dying from breast cancer or any cause.

The effect of two years of goserelin therapy was comparable to that conferred by two years of tamoxifen. Among patients who took goserelin alone, there were 13.9 fewer events per 100 women 15 years after starting therapy, compared with those who did not take either drug. Among women who took both drugs, the benefit of adding goserelin to tamoxifen was smaller (2.8 fewer events per 100 patients) and did not reach statistical significance......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

February 25, 2009, 6:21 AM CT

Yoga benefits breast cancer patients

Women undertaking a ten week program of 75 minute Restorative Yoga (RY) classes gained positive differences in aspects of mental health such as depression, positive emotions, and spirituality (feeling calm/peaceful) in comparison to the control group. The study, published recently in a special issue of Psycho-Oncology focusing on physical activity, shows the women had a 50% reduction in depression and a 12% increase in feelings of peace and meaning after the yoga sessions.

RY is a gentle type of yoga which is similar to other types of yoga classes, moving the spine in all directions but in a more passive and gentle way. Props such as cushions, bolsters, and blankets provide complete physical support for total relaxation with minimal physical effort, and so people in differing levels of health can practice yoga more easily.

44 women participated in the study, with 22 undertaking the yoga classes and 22 in the waitlist control group. All of the women had breast cancer; 34% were actively undergoing cancer therapy while the majority had already completed therapy. All participants completed a questionnaire at the beginning and end of the ten week program, asking them to evaluate their quality of life through various measures. The results clearly showed that the women who had been given the RY classes experienced a wide range of benefits in comparison to the control group (who were later all invited to attend identical RY classes)......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

February 16, 2009, 9:27 PM CT

Breast MRI to supplement standard imaging

Updated guidelines for physicians that represent best practices for using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to newly diagnose breast cancer and to make therapy decisions for breast cancer were published recently in the Journal of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network Breast radiologists and surgeons at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance (SCCA) and the Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, N.Y. authored the paper upon which the guidelines are based.

The SCCA breast imaging program led by Connie Lehman, M.D., has established itself as a national leader in breast MRI based on pioneering research it has reported in the past few years. Lehman is corresponding author of today's journal paper, "Indications for Breast MRI in the Patient with Newly Diagnosed Breast Cancer." The study summarizes an extensive review of published, peer-evaluated studies.

Among the key recommendations:.

• MRI is not a substitute for screening or diagnostic mammography and, when indicated, diagnostic breast ultrasound. MRI supplements the use of these standard imaging tools in appropriately selected clinical situations.
• For women with diagnosed breast cancer, MRI provides enhanced detection in both the breast known to have cancer and the opposite, or "contralateral," breast.........
  
  
  Posted by: Janet      Read more
  
  

February 9, 2009, 5:59 AM CT

Pregnancy does not decrease breast cancer survival

Young women who develop breast cancer during their pregnancy, or who are diagnosed within one year of their pregnancy, have no difference in rates of local recurrence, distant metastases and overall survival in comparison to other young women with the disease, as per scientists at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center.

However, the largest single-institution study to look at pregnant patients with breast cancer finds that women with Pregnancy Associated Breast Cancer (PABC), are more likely to be diagnosed later with advanced stages of the disease and, thus, have necessary therapy delayed.

The findings appear in the March 15 issue of the journal Cancer

"Breast cancer in young women is a highly aggressive disease, and it's important that we study it in hopes of making a difference in terms of therapy," said Beth Beadle, M.D., a radiation oncology resident at M. D. Anderson and the study's first author. "When we looked at our young breast cancer population, a relatively large percentage had disease affiliated with pregnancy. We thought it would be really instructive to review our data to determine how we can best serve these women".

It's estimated that up to 3.8 percent of pregnancies are complicated by breast cancer, and approximately 10 percent of patients with breast cancer under age 40 develop the disease during pregnancy, said the researchers. As the age for first and subsequent pregnancies increases and intersects with advances in imaging and screening, this statistic will only continue to climb, explained George Perkins, M.D., associate professor in M. D. Anderson's Department of Radiation Oncology......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

February 5, 2009, 6:05 AM CT

Do not count on statins to prevent breast cancer

Laboratory work in animals showed limited activity when statins were given to prevent breast cancer, as per a report in the recent issue of Cancer Prevention Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.

Statins, sold under brand names like Lipitor and Zocor, are primarily given to lower cholesterol and prevent heart disease, and prominent heart specialists almost universally agree that their use has changed the landscape.

The use of these drugs in cancer prevention has been more controversial. Results of epidemiology studies, which rely on looking backward rather than forward and thus are subject to confounding factors, have yielded mixed results when examining breast cancer.

Researchers under the auspices of the NCI, including Ronald Lubet, Ph.D., an NCI program director, and Clinton Grubbs, Ph.D., director of the Chemoprevention Center at the University of Alabama at Birmingham conducted laboratory work in animals to determine if statins actually prevent both ER-positive and ER-negative breast cancer.

In the current study, researchers tested atorvastatin and lovastatin. "We saw no real efficacy from either statin," said Lubet. "Previous studies have shown some but limited efficacy in breast cancer models when these drugs were given through a method that would be the equivalent of intravenously in humans. However, that is not the way people take statins"......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

February 3, 2009, 6:13 AM CT

PET scan in inflammatory breast cancer

In the largest study to date to evaluate fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography combined with computed tomography (FDG-PET/CT) in the initial staging of inflammatory breast cancer (IBC), scientists were able to identify the precise location and extent of metastasis (spread of disease), offering the potential for a better prognosis for patients with this rare, but aggressive form of breast cancer.

"PET/CT is useful in staging IBC because it provides information on both the primary disease site as well as disease involvement throughout the rest of the body," said Homer A. Macapinlac, MD, chair and professor of nuclear medicine at the University of Texas, M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, Texas. "In addition to detecting the presence of cancer, PET/CT is able to demonstrate the biology of cancer-revealing how aggressive the disease is-which can help physicians develop appropriate treatment approaches."

For the study, reported in the recent issue of The Journal of Nuclear Medicine, scientists reported findings in 41 women between the ages of 25 and 71 with unilateral primary IBC who had originally presented with swelling, some pain and skin changes, such as rash and skin discoloration. A palpable mass was not evident on physical examination in 26 patients (63 percent), which is not unusual in this form of breast cancer, and 90 percent had no symptoms of distant metastasis (disease spread beyond the breast)......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

February 2, 2009, 6:21 AM CT

Promise for improved breast cancer treatment

As per a research findings published by Nature Biotechnology online on February 1, 2009, Mount Sinai Hospital scientists have unveiled a new technology tool that analyzes breast cancer tumours to determine a patient's best therapy options. The tool can predict with more than 80 per cent accuracy a patient's chance of recovering from breast cancer.

"Breast cancer is the most common cancer in Canadian women," said Dr. Jeff Wrana, Senior Investigator and the Mary Janigan Research Chair in Molecular Cancer Therapeutics at the Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute of Mount Sinai Hospital, and an International Scholar of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. "Our hope with this technology is to eventually provide individualized analysis to patients with breast cancer and their oncologists so that they are better informed and empowered to select a therapy best suited to them."

The technology, called 'DyNeMo' analyzes networks of proteins in cancer cells. Analysis of more than 350 patients observed that those who survive breast cancer have a different organization of the network of proteins within the tumour cells, compared with patients who succumbed to the illness. DyNeMo can be used to predict the outcome in a newly diagnosed breast cancer patient and then assist clinicians and patients in making informed decisions on therapy. The study was led by the Mount Sinai Hospital team and co-authored by scientists at the University of Toronto and London, England's The Institute for Cancer Research......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

February 2, 2009, 6:07 AM CT

Tumor vessel leakiness and chemotherapy outcome

Chemotherapy is an integral part of modern cancer therapy, but it's not always effective. Successful chemotherapy depends on the ability of anticancer drugs to escape from the bloodstream through the leaky blood vessels that often surround tumors.

Predicting chemotherapy's efficacy could save thousands of individuals from unnecessary toxicity and the often difficult side effects of the therapys.

As per a research findings reported in the recent issue of the journal Radiology, scientists describe a technique for determining the "leakiness" of tumor blood vessels using a simple digital mammography unit. The scientists designed nanometer-sized capsules containing a contrast agent that could only leak into tumors with blood vessels that were growing and therefore leaky. The digital mammography-based quantification of "leakiness" is closely corcorrelation to the ability of a clinically approved chemotherapy agent to enter the tumor, allowing the scientists to predict the agent's therapeutic efficacy.

"We developed a quantitative way to measure the leakiness of the blood vessels, which is directly associated with the amount of drug that gets to the cancer and in turn determines effectiveness," said Ravi Bellamkonda, a professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University. "By simply measuring how much contrast agent reaches the tumor, we can predict how much of a clinically approved chemotherapeutic will reach the tumor, allowing physicians to personalize the dose and predict effectiveness"......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

January 26, 2009, 11:30 PM CT

Not all breast cancers are the same

Not all breast cancers are the same, and not all will have fatal consequences. But because clinicians find it difficult to accurately determine which tumors will metastasize, a number of patients do not receive the treatment fits their disease.

Tel Aviv University has now refined breast cancer identification so that each course of therapy is as individual as the woman being treated.

The new approach -- based on a combination of MRI and ultrasound -- is able to measure the metabolism rates of cancer cells. The approach helps determine at an earlier stage than ever before which cells are metastasizing, and how they should be treated.

The method, expected to start clinical trials in 2010, is currently being researched in Israel hospitals.

Leading the Way to a New Field of Medicine.

"We have developed a non-intrusive way of studying the metabolism of breast cancer in real time," says Dr. Ilan Tsarfaty, a lead researcher from TAU's Sackler Faculty of Medicine. "It's an invaluable tool. By the time results are in from a traditional biopsy, the cancer can already be radically different. But using our technique, we can map the tumor and its borders and determine with high levels of certainty - right away - which patients should be treated aggressively"......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

January 26, 2009, 6:08 AM CT

What causes breast cancer on the other side?

HOUSTON - A preventive procedure to remove the unaffected breast in patients with breast cancer with disease in one breast may only be necessary in patients who have high-risk features as assessed by examining the patient's medical history and pathology of the breast cancer, as per scientists at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center.

Their findings, reported in the March 1, 2009 issue of Cancer, may help physicians predict the likelihood of patients developing breast cancer in the opposite breast (contralateral breast cancer), stratify risk and counsel patients on their therapy options.

"Women often consider contralateral prophylactic mastectomy (CPM) not because of medical recommendation, but because they fear having their breast cancer return," said Kelly Hunt, M.D., professor in the Department of Surgical Oncology at M. D. Anderson and main author on the study. "Currently it is very difficult to identify which patients are at enough risk to benefit from this aggressive and irreversible procedure. Our goal was to determine what characteristics defined these high-risk patients to better inform future decisions regarding CPM".

As per the researchers, approximately 2.7 percent of women diagnosed with breast cancer choose to have CPM. Recent statistics have shown that the rate of CPM in women with stage I-III breast cancer increased by 150 percent from 1998 to 2003 in the United States. Potential reasons patients with breast cancer choose to undergo CPM include risk reduction, difficult surveillance and reconstructive issues such as symmetry and/or balance......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source

January 15, 2009, 6:55 PM CT

Exercise in post-menopausal women reduces breast cancer risk

Several studies had previously suggested that regular physical exercise reduces the breast cancer risk of women. However, it had been unknowned just how much exercise women should take in which period in life in order to benefit from this protective effect. Moreover, little was known about which particular type of breast cancer is influenced by physical activity.

Answers to these questions are now provided by the results of the MARIE study, in which 3,464 patients with breast cancer and 6,657 healthy women between the ages of 50 and 74 years were questioned in order to explore the connections between life style and breast cancer risk. Participants of the study, which was headed by Professor Dr. Jenny Chang-Claude and conducted at the German Cancer Research Center and the University Hospitals of Hamburg-Eppendorf, were questioned about their physical activity during two periods in life: from 30 to 49 years of age and after 50.

A comparison between control subjects and patients with breast cancer showed that women in the control group had been physically more active than patients. The researchers calculated the relative breast cancer risks taking account of the effect of other risk factors. Results show that the risk of developing breast cancer after menopause was lower by about one third in the physically most active MARIE participants in comparison to women who had generally taken little physical exercise......... Posted by: Janet      Read more         Source