Breast Cancer
Many women go off tamoxifen too soon: study
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About one third of women with breast cancer who are being treated with tamoxifen stop taking the medication before the end of the recommended 5 years of therapy, a study shows.
This is a concern, noted Dr. Thomas I. Barron in an interview with Reuters Health given that “the maximum benefit from tamoxifen is gained when it is taken for 5 years.”
High-fat diet may increase breast cancer risk
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A large study of middle-age women with a wide range of fat in their diet shows that eating a high-fat diet raises the risk of developing invasive breast cancer.
The findings, reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, stem from the National Institutes of Health-AARP Diet and Health Study, in which 188,736 postmenopausal women reported detailed information on their diet in the mid-1990s.
Male Breast Cancer: Racial Disparities in Treatment and Survival
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A new study shows that among men treated for breast cancer, African-American men are more likely to die of the disease compared with white men. Results of the study are published in the March 20, 2007 issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology (JCO).
The studies by researchers at Columbia University Medical Center analyzed race and other predictors of treatment and survival among 510 men over 65 diagnosed with stage I-III breast cancer between 1991 and 2002. The researchers found five-year survival rates of approximately 90% among 456 white men and 66% among 34 African-American men.
Mammography results poorly communicated to blacks
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African American women are less likely than whites to receive adequate communication of their mammography results, a new study conducted in Connecticut shows.
When a black woman’s results were abnormal, they were more likely to be poorly communicated to her than when the results were normal. But the reverse was true for whites.
Surgery linked to breast cancer racial disparity
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Racial disparity in death rates between African American and other women with breast cancer may be due in part to surgery which may encourage the growth of the tumour, an international team of researchers said.
African American women are often diagnosed with breast cancer at an earlier age and have a higher risk of dying from the illness. The average age when their disease is detected is 46, compared to 57 years old for white women.
A black and white look at breast cancer mortality
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African and African American women are more likely to die of breast cancer than their white counterparts because they tend to get the disease before the menopause, suggests new research from the University of East Anglia and the Children’s Hospital Boston in collaboration with researchers in the US and Italy.
A racial disparity in mortality rates from breast cancer in the US first appeared in the 1970s coinciding with the introduction of mammography. The new research, published in The International Journal of Surgery, posits that the reason for this is not reduced access to medical care, but because surgery in pre-menopausal women could encourage growth of the cancer.
Study finds newer breast cancer drugs save lives
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Women with breast cancer who switch from tamoxifen to a newer class of drugs called aromatase inhibitors live longer, Italian researchers reported on Monday.
Their study, published in the journal Cancer, adds to a growing body of evidence that the new drugs are far safer, preventing cancer with fewer side effects than tamoxifen.
International study points to new breast cancer-susceptibility gene
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A gene whose existence was detected only a couple of years ago may increase women’s risk of breast cancer when inherited in a mutated form, and may contribute to prostate cancer as well, researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and colleagues in Finland report in a new study.
The gene, known as PALB2, may play a role in only about 1 percent of breast cancer cases in the select population that was studied (Finnish women), but its discovery sheds light on the complex web of gene interactions that underlies the disease, say the authors of the study, which is being published by the journal Nature on its Web site, http://www.nature.com/nature, and later in a print edition.
Tailored breast cancer care urged for black women
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African-American breast cancer patients may be harder hit by the disease than whites due to the type of tumors they tend to develop, rather than socioeconomic factors alone, a new study suggests.
Based on the findings, more efforts must be made to tailor treatments to the more-aggressive tumor types that frequently occur in black women, Dr. Wendy A. Woodward told Reuters Health.
Researchers Discover Method in Mice to Restore Tamoxifen Sensitivity in Resistant Breast Cancer
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The widely used breast cancer drug tamoxifen (Nolvadex®), which can become less effective over time, might retain its full strength indefinitely if used along with a second drug, according to new research in mice conducted by investigators from the National Cancer Institute (NCI), part of the National Institutes of Health, and their partners. The results appear in the December 11, 2006, issue of Cancer Cell*.
Tamoxifen has been used successfully since the 1970s to treat certain types of breast cancer and to prevent them from recurring after surgery. Clinicians observed that tamoxifen treatment initially reduced the rate of recurrence by nearly 50 percent. Over time, however, patients develop resistance to the drug and tamoxifen loses its effectiveness as a cancer treatment.
Advances in breast imaging
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A diagnostic device that resembles a mammography unit can detect breast tumors as tiny as one-fifth of an inch in diameter, which may make it a valuable complementary imaging technique to mammography, say researchers at Mayo Clinic, who helped develop the technology along with industry collaborators Gamma Medica and GE Healthcare.
This new technique, Molecular Breast Imaging, uses a new dual-head gamma camera system and is sensitive enough to detect tumors less than 10 millimeters (about two-fifths of an inch) in diameter in 88 percent of cases where it is used. Early findings from an ongoing comparison of the device with mammography show that it can detect small cancers that were not found with mammography, say the investigators. Mayo Clinic physicist Michael O’Connor, Ph.D., will present these results Saturday, Dec. 16, at the 2006 meeting of the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.
“Our ultimate goal is to detect small cancers that may be inconspicuous or invisible on a mammogram for high-risk women with dense breasts,” says Dr. O’Connor.
Drop in breast cancer tied to less HRT
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A sharp decline in new breast cancer cases in 2003 in the United States may have come about because millions of older women ceased hormone replacement therapy (HRT) the previous year, researchers said on Thursday.
However, they stressed that because their analysis is based on population statistics, the reasons are not completely certain.
“The investigators report that there was an overall 7 percent relative decline in breast cancer incidence between 2002 and 2003,” the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center said in a statement.
Breast cancer screening under 50 questioned
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Screening women under 50 years old for breast cancer does not significantly reduce deaths from the disease, British researchers said on Friday.
They estimated giving women annual mammograms beginning at the age of 40 could save about four lives for every 1,000 women screened.
Silicone breast implants given the OK by the FDA
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The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the U.S. has lifted a ban on the use of silicone breast implants.
But the removal of the 14 year ban carries the proviso that the implants be studied for side effects on 40,000 women for a 10 year period.
The FDA says a number of independent studies have failed to find evidence that the silicone breast implants caused tissue damage or cancer, but nevertheless safety concerns continue to worry some.
Hormones linked with breast cancer risk in blacks
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Overall breast cancer rates have fallen among US women in recent years, but haven’t significantly changed among young African-American women. The researchers suggest this might be partially explained by cosmetic products containing estrogens and placenta, which are more widely used by African Americans.
Steps must be taken to understand this racial disparity so it can be rectified, co-author Dr. Devra L. Davis, director of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute’s Center for Cancer Epidemiology said in a press release accompanying the study.
