Breast Cancer
Anemia increases risk of breast cancer recurrence
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Women with breast cancer who developed anemia during chemotherapy had nearly three times the risk of local recurrence as those who did not develop anemia, according to a study published this week.
“We speculate that there may be an interaction between chemotherapy/radiotherapy and anemia,” study chief Dr. Peter Dubsky, from the Medical University of Vienna, Austria, said in a statement.
“Both treatment modalities have been shown to be less effective in anemia patients. Since we do not see the effect in terms of relapse-free survival, the interaction with local adjuvant treatment may play a more important role,” Dubsky added.
Integrating Genetic Information With Breast Cancer Risks May Refine Prognosis
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Incorporating genetic information known as gene expression signatures with clinical and other risk factors for breast cancer may help refine estimates of relapse-free survival and predicted response to chemotherapy, according to a study in the April 2 issue of JAMA.
“The advent of genomic technology for the analysis of human tumor samples has now added an additional source of information to aid prognosis and clinical decisions. In particular, the development of genomic profiles that accurately assess risk of recurrence offers the hope that this information will more precisely define clinical outcomes in breast cancer. The dimension and complexity of such data provide an opportunity to uncover clinically valid trends that can distinguish subtle phenotypes [physical manifestations] in ways that traditional methods cannot,” the authors write. Few studies have examined the value in integrating genomic information with the traditional clinical risk factors to provide a more detailed assessment of clinical risk and an improved prediction of response to therapy.
Chaitanya R. Acharya, M.S., of the Duke Institute for Genome Sciences and Policy, Duke University, Durham, N.C., and colleagues conducted a study to determine the value in incorporating genomic information with clinical and pathological risk factors to refine prognosis and to improve therapeutic strategies for early stage breast cancer.
Obese women less likely to have cancer screenings
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Obese women, particularly white obese women, are less likely than their thinner peers to be screened for breast and cervical cancers, researchers reported Monday.
In a review of 32 previously published studies, researchers found that obesity was consistently linked to lower rates of breast and cervical cancer screening among white women. Fourteen studies focused on cervical cancer, 10 on breast cancer and 8 looked at colorectal cancer.
Sarah S. Cohen and colleagues at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, report the findings in the online edition of the journal Cancer.
EU to take another look at GSK breast cancer drug
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Europe’s drugs regulators will take another look at GlaxoSmithKline Plc’s new breast cancer pill Tyverb after new data showed a small risk of higher liver enzymes during treatment with the drug.
GSK, Europe’s biggest drug maker, said on Tuesday that the European Commission had referred Tyverb, which is on sale in the United States under the name Tykerb, back to the EU’s Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP).
CHMP recommended conditional approval for Tyverb in December, meaning it could go on sale but that additional data were required.
Frank talk about family breast cancer risk urged
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Women from families who openly talk about their family history of breast cancer are more knowledgeable about genetic counseling and testing, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday. That may make them more likely to get tested, they said.
Researchers at Georgetown University Medical Center and George Washington University Hospital undertook the study to understand why black women participate less in genetic counseling and testing for breast cancer genes than do white women.
While they were unable to pinpoint key differences between the two groups, they did find that when a woman knows her family’s breast cancer history, she is better informed about the need for testing.
Overweight women have worse breast cancer: study
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Breast cancer patients who are overweight have more aggressive disease and are likely to die sooner, U.S. researchers reported on Friday.
A dangerous type of breast cancer, known as inflammatory breast cancer, was seen in 45 percent of obese patients, compared with 30 percent of overweight patients and 15 percent of patients of healthy weight.
“The more obese a patient is, the more aggressive the disease,” said Dr. Massimo Cristofanilli of the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, who led the study.
Body Mass Index may serve as prognostic tool for advanced, aggressive breast cancers
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Body Mass Index (BMI), the measure of a person’s fat based on their height and weight, may be an effective prognostic tool for specific types of breast cancer, according to research from The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center.
The study, published in the March 15 issue of Cancer Research, reports that women with locally advanced breast cancer (LABC) and inflammatory breast cancer (IBC) with high BMIs had worse prognosis than women with the disease whose BMIs were in the healthy range.
One’s BMI is scored based on height and weight. A score less than 18.5 indicates that a person is underweight and a score of 18.5 -24.9 indicates that one is in a normal or healthy range. A person is overweight if their score is 25-29.9 and any score above 30 classifies that a person as obese.
Drinking plus hormones may up breast cancer risk
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Even moderate drinking may raise the risk of breast cancer among postmenopausal women on hormone replacement therapy, new research suggests.
A number of studies have linked regular drinking to a higher risk of breast cancer; it’s thought that the risk reflects the effects of alcohol on women’s levels of estrogen and other hormones. Similarly, hormone replacement therapy (HRT) after menopause has been shown to raise the risk of breast cancer.
The new findings, reported in the International Journal of Cancer, suggest that alcohol and HRT may combine to further boost the odds of developing the disease.
Yoga program benefits breast cancer survivors
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In a small study of breast cancer survivors, researchers found that a tailored yoga program helped relieve severe hot flashes and other bothersome menopausal symptoms.
Women who participated in the 8-week “Yoga of Awareness” program not only had greater declines in the frequency and severity of their hot flashes than did a comparison “control” group, they also experienced less fatigue, joint pain, sleep disturbance, and symptom-related distress. They also reported increased vigor.
These improvements were still evident 3 months after the yoga sessions ended.
Hair sample may provide breast cancer diagnosis
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Hair from women with breast cancer can be distinguished from hair obtained from women without the disease, researchers in Australia report.
When hair is exposed to X-rays, the radiation is diffracted in a distinctive pattern by the alpha-keratin that forms hair, the researchers explain in the International Journal of Cancer. Dr. Gary L. Corino and Dr. Peter W. French, based at Fermiscan Ltd in Sydney, used the technique to look at samples of hair from 13 patients diagnosed with breast cancer and 20 healthy subjects.
Hair was cut as close to the skin as possible to obtain samples of the most recent hair growth. The investigators “successfully and consistently generated the basic alpha-keratin X-ray diffraction pattern in every hair sample.”
Breast cancer risk linked with fertility timing
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A longer interval between the age a woman first begins to menstruate and her age when she first gives birth is associated with an increased risk of breast cancer, the results of a study published in the American Journal of Epidemiology suggests.
Age at menstruation and first birth are “established risk factors for breast cancer,” Dr. Christopher I. Li, of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, and colleagues write. The interval between these ages may also influence breast cancer risk because the breast becomes more susceptible to carcinogenic exposure during this period period, they note. “However, few investigators have studied this relation.”
To investigate further, Li’s group used data from the Women’s Contraceptive and Reproductive Experiences Study (1994 to 1998), including 4,013 women with breast cancer and 4,069 women without breast cancer (the controls).
Review of online breast cancer information encourages healthy skepticism for consumers
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In an extended analysis of Web pages dedicated to disseminating breast cancer information, researchers at two University of Texas institutions in the Houston have determined that while most breast cancer data found online was accurate, one in 20 breast cancer Web pages featured inaccuracies and sites displaying complementary and alternative medicine were 15 times more likely to contain false or misleading health information.
Published in the March 15 issue of Cancer and online today, the study was conducted by The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in collaboration with researchers at The University of Texas School of Health Information Sciences at Houston (SHIS) as one of a series of studies to determine whether existing quality assessment tools can identify false or inaccurate breast cancer information available online.
The Pew Internet and American Life Project estimates that more patients seek health information online rather than visit a physician.
Breast cancer diagnosis comes late for women in gentrifying neighborhoods
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Women who live in Chicago’s gentrifying neighborhoods are more apt to receive a late diagnosis of breast cancer than women who live in poverty-stricken neighborhoods, University of Illinois at Chicago researchers have found.
The surprising finding is in a study published in the January issue of the Annals of Epidemiology.
“There’s been a lot of social change in American cities since 1990, but we know very little about how gentrification impacts health outcomes,” said Richard Barrett, researcher at the UIC Institute for Health Research and Policy and lead author of the study. “We know that minority women in Cook County are more likely to be diagnosed with late-stage breast cancer and to die from it compared with white women, but we were interested in how neighborhood change impacts breast cancer diagnosis.”
Combined HRT Increases Risk of Lobular Breast Cancer Fourfold After Just Three Years of Use
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Postmenopausal women who take combined estrogen/progestin hormone-replacement therapy for three years or more face a fourfold increased risk of developing various forms of lobular breast cancer, according to new findings by researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.
“Previous research indicated that five or more years of combined hormone-therapy use was necessary to increase overall breast-cancer risk,” said Christopher I. Li, M.D., Ph.D., the lead author of the report, published in the January issue of Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention. “Our study, the first specifically designed to evaluate the relationship between combined HRT and lobular breast cancers, suggests that a significantly shorter length of exposure to such hormones may confer an increased risk.”
The study, which confirms previous reports of the association between combined hormone-therapy use and increased risk of lobular breast cancers, is the largest study of combined HRT and lobular cancer risk in the United States. It is also the first such study to take into account the recency and duration of hormone use and the first to include a centralized pathological review of tumor specimens to confirm their histological type: ductal, lobular or mixed ductal-lobular.
Breast cancer gene mutation more common in Hispanic, young black women, Stanford/NCCC study finds
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A genetic mutation already known to be more common in Ashkenazi Jewish breast cancer patients is also prevalent in Hispanic and young African-American women with breast cancer, according to one of the largest, multiracial studies of the mutation to date.
Researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine and the Northern California Cancer Center reported the finding from a study of 3,181 breast cancer patients in Northern California. It revealed that although Ashkenazi Jewish women with breast cancer had the highest rate of the BRCA1 mutation at 8.3 percent, Hispanic women with breast cancer were next most likely, with a rate of 3.5 percent. Non-Hispanic whites with breast cancer showed a 2.2 percent rate, followed by 1.3 percent of African-American women of all ages and 0.5 percent in Asian-American women. Of the African-American breast cancer patients under age 35, 16.7 percent had the mutation.
