A new test has been developed which can predict whether a breast cancer patient will respond to chemotherapy within 24-hours of starting treatment, thus sparing her unnecessary treatment and side effects, according to a study published in the medical journal Clinical Cancer Research. The test can also determine whether the woman can benefit from PARP-inhibitors, a promising new type of cancer treatment currently undergoing clinical trials. (more…)
Using postmenopausal hormone therapy for more than 15 years increases a woman’s risk of developing breast cancer, particularly among leaner women according to research at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California (USC).
An analysis of the California Teachers Study focused on postmenopausal hormone therapy use among more than 55,000 women for nearly 10 years. The research was conducted by a team including first author Tanmai Saxena, an M.D. Ph.D student at the Keck School. The research was published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention, an American Association for Cancer Research journal. (more…)
LONDON – The rate at which women died from breast cancer dropped faster in Britain than in any other major European country during the last two decades, according to new research.
In previous studies, Britain has often ranked last among Western Europe for cancer survival rates. The U.K. does not spend as much money on new cancer drugs or other treatments as other countries including France and Germany.
In a study published online in the medical journal BMJ, European researchers analyzed data from the World Health Organization, looking for changes in the breast cancer death rates in 30 European countries from 1980 to 2006. (more…)
New investigation results, ‘Gynaecologic challenging issues in the management of BRCA mutation carriers: oral contraceptives, prophylactic salpingo-oophorectomy and hormone replacement therapy,’ are detailed in a study published in Gynecological Endocrinology. According to recent research published in the journal Gynecological Endocrinology, “BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation carriers have a 54-85% and 45% lifetime risk of developing breast cancer, respectively, and a 18-60% and 11-27% lifetime risk of developing ovarian cancer, respectively. Oral contraceptives (OCs) significantly reduce the risk of ovarian cancer also in BRCA1/BRCA2 mutation carriers.
WASHINGTON, May 25 Speaker Nancy Pelosi delivered remarks this afternoon at a Congressional awards reception for the National Breast Cancer Coalition’s (NBCC) Annual Advocacy Training Conference in the Russell Senate Office Building. The Speaker was presented with the Public Policy Leadership Award. Below are the Speaker’s remarks as prepared:
“Thank you, Fran [Visco] for your kind introduction and for the honor of this award.
“During the health care debate, Fran – and many of you – were essential allies. Fran stormed Capitol Hill, testified before House committees, and demanded that health care be a right, not just a privilege. Under Fran’s leadership, the NBCC was named one of the 20 most influential organizations in health policy in the country.
“I know that the National Breast Cancer Coalition’s number one legislative priority is access to quality health care for all. And because of your advocacy, your organization, your number one legislative priority is now the law of the land.
“You know best what this means:
Affordability for the middle class;
Access for millions more Americans;
Accountability for the insurance industry….. (more…)
Older women at higher risk for breast cancer now have two good drug options for preventing the disease, but they will have to weigh the trade-offs, a major study shows.
Tamoxifen, the longtime gold standard, is more effective and longer lasting, the results show. But a newer drug _ raloxifene, sold as Evista _ is safer.
“I don’t see a clear winner,” but two good choices with different risks and benefits, said Dr. Scott Lippman, a cancer specialist at the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center.
He is editor of Cancer Prevention Research, a journal that published long-term results from the federally funded study on Monday. They also were being presented at an American Association for Cancer Research meeting in Washington.
Tamoxifen is widely used to treat cancer once it’s diagnosed, and Evista is used to treat osteoporosis. But the drugs have not found wide acceptance so far as cancer preventives. Doctors hope the findings will spur more high-risk women to consider taking one of the drugs.
They’re not recommended for women at average risk of breast cancer. But for the millions who are at higher risk because of gene mutations, family history or other factors, they can make a dramatic difference.
“Between 27 million and 30 million women in the United States might have a high enough risk to qualify for one of these drugs,” including any woman over age 60, said Dr. Gabriel Hortobagyi, a breast cancer specialist at the M. D. Anderson Cancer Center.
Tamoxifen cut the chances of developing the most serious forms of breast cancer in half, the research shows, but with a higher risk of uterine cancer. Evista cut the cancer risk by 38 percent, with fewer uterine problems and other serious side effects…… (more…)
The Samuel Waxman Cancer Research Foundation announces fifth David T. Workman Memorial Award recipient
Molecular biologist Alan Ashworth, Ph.D., FRS, the director of the Breakthrough Breast Cancer Research Centre at the Institute of Cancer Research in London will receive the David T. Workman Memorial Award on May 17. The two-year grant of $50,000 from the Samuel Waxman Cancer Research Foundation will support Dr. Ashworth’s work with PARP inhibitors in BRCA-mutated cancers.
“I’m both surprised and delighted that the Waxman Foundation has thought to honor me in this way,” said Dr. Ashworth. “Recognition from your peers is incredibly important and I’m thrilled.”
Dr. Ashworth helped discover the BRCA2 breast cancer gene in 1995. After realizing that BRCA-related cancers had a flawed DNA repair pathway, Dr. Ashworth and his team worked with a biotechnology company to study the use of PARP inhibitors to treat these cancers. They learned that BRCA-defective cancer cells were 1,000 times more sensitive to PARP inhibitors than cells that were normal. His lab is studying the use of PARP inhibitors to treat cancers such as endometrial cancer, ovarian cancer and breast cancer, including triple-negative breast cancer, which responds poorly to normal chemotherapy….. (more…)
ScienceDaily (Apr. 14, 2010) — Women with breast cancer whose tumors express high levels of a particular genetic marker are significantly more likely to die from their disease than are those with more normal levels, according to researchers at Stanford University School of Medicine. The finding implies that blocking the action of the marker — a newly recognized type of RNA — could one day be an effective way to prevent metastasis and improve survival for these women, who make up about one-third of all breast cancer patients.
“We’ve found that this RNA, called HOTAIR, is a really important player in human health,” said Howard Chang, MD, PhD, an associate professor of dermatology and a member of the Stanford Cancer Center. “When it becomes dysregulated in breast cancer, it drives the tumor cells to metastasize and worsens a woman’s prognosis.”
It does this, the researchers believe, by tinkering with the cells’ genome, laying bare regions that are normally kept bundled up and silent in adult cells and silencing others that are normally expressed. “As a result, the cells’ gene expression profiles begin to look much more like those of embryonic fibroblasts, and they acquire attributes that allow them to thrive in other parts of the body,” said Chang.
Chang is the senior author of the work, which will be published on April 15 in the journal Nature. He was named a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Early Career Scientist in March 2009. He collaborated with researchers at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Academic Medical Center in the Netherlands, the Broad Institute of Harvard, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Applied Biosystems Inc. to conduct the research.
Until recently, RNA was thought to exist mostly to carry protein-building instructions from the DNA in the nucleus to protein-making factories called ribosomes in the cell’s cytoplasm. However, it’s become more clear in the past few years that RNA is much more versatile. Some types can affect how genes are expressed by binding to and even modifying the structure of DNA…. (more…)
Tampa, FL– Anne Benedini feels blessed to be a surivivor. After a routine mammogram in 2005 revealed she had ductal carcinoma in situ, a breast cancer found in the milk duct, she had lumpectomies in both breasts and six weeks of radiation.
“I feel like I can celebrate alot of things that I’ve seen in these last five years, that if I hadn’t had a mammogram or the early diagnosis I wouldn’t be here to see and to celebrate,” said Benedini. “I think probably one of the worst things about being diagnosed with cancer is your feeling of your loss of control, or loss of power or the feeling of helplessness, and I think there were two areas after I had my initial surgery and radiation that I felt like I could control and that was my diet and my exercise.”
The retired special education teacher has always been active, but made preventing a recurrence and being a healthy survivor her top priorities. She signed up for the first Miles for Moffitt race in 2006. The mother of two and grandmother has walked or ran every race since.
“For me, it was a way to give back. I think exercise and walking helped me during the course of my treatment because some of it was very overwhelming, some of the decisions I had to make, and if I was feeling overwhelmed, if I was outside on a beautiful day like today and walking, it gave me some quiet time to kind of organize my thoughts and think about things. So, I thought, well this is a perfect fit. I can go and I can exercise, but I can give back to Moffitt.”
She’s giving back for getting more memories with her family.
“What means the most to me is in that five years my daughter, Kate, and her husband have gotten married. I’ve gotten to see both Kate and Christine graduate from college,” Benedini said. “I’m going to be as positive as I can be because, if anything, you learn you gotta value what you have today.”
CHICAGO (Reuters) – Three in 10 women take the common breast cancer drug Femara to treat infertility, even though it could increase risks to the baby, U.S. researchers said on Friday.
They said the drug is often prescribed “off-label” to treat infertility, even though it is classified by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as posing a pregnancy risk.
And a study of health claims suggests policies by health insurers to only pay for the drug’s approved uses could improve both the care and safety of the women who take it.
Novartis’s Femara or letrozole is approved to treat post-menopausal women who have hormone-receptor positive breast cancers, in which a hormone is driving the cancer.
The drug, which in a class of drugs known as aromatase inhibitors, works by blocking the production of estrogen in postmenopausal women.
Femara has also been studied as a treatment for infertility, but so far there has not been enough evidence to show that it is safe and effective, according to researchers at the pharmacy benefit company Prime Therapeutics, which presented the findings at the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy meeting in San Diego.
In one Canadian study in 2005, a team found nearly a three-fold increase in the risk of birth defects in a group of 150 babies born after letrozole treatment, and the company has warned doctors against using the drug to treat infertility.
Once drugs are approved by the FDA, doctors are free to prescribe them as they see fit.
Doctors that treat infertility say they use the drug in women with ovulation problems.
According to a website for the Advanced Fertility Center of Chicago, when the enzyme aromatase is blocked by the drug it causes estrogen levels in young women to fall, triggering the release of follicle stimulating hormone or FSH, which causes women to ovulate.
And they said the Canadian study was too small, and its trial design has been seen as flawed.
CONTROLLING REIMBURSEMENT
The Prime Therapeutics team and one of the company’s Blue Cross and Blue Shield clients wanted to see if a program aimed at controlling reimbursement of the drug could improve patient safety and cut costs.
They reviewed about 1.5 million claims from two Blue Cross health plans between July 2008 and June 2009 to see how often letrozole is used for infertility.
They found it was common, with 29.3 percent of plan members using the drug to treat infertility. More than 95 percent of women over age 50 who took the drug did not have an FDA-approved diagnosis.
The average cost of treatment was about $174 per claim, the team told the meeting.
They said restricting reimbursement of the drug to FDA-approved indications might be a way to not only cut costs, but also reduce fetal risks if a woman taking the drug succeeds in getting pregnant.
