New researches on breast cancer

October 27th, 2007

For the Blogging for Boobs event, I want to bring in your attention some new researches on Breast Cancer. Because I’m not a medical specialist, I write a little quote and then I’ll give you the link to the full article. These are just a few articles that I’ve found out over the internet, but assuredly there are much more.

Sunlight exposure may decrease risk of advanced breast cancer

A research team has found that increased exposure to sunlight (which increases levels of vitamin D in the body) may decrease the risk of advanced breast cancer. The researchers found that women with high sun exposure had half the risk of developing advanced breast cancer, which is cancer that has spread beyond the breast, compared to women with low sun exposure. These findings were observed only for women with naturally light skin color. The study defined high sun exposure as having dark skin on the forehead, an area that is usually exposed to sunlight.
You can read the full article in Medical News Today – published: 20 Oct. 2007

Accuracy of breast cancer prognoses improved

One of the many unknowns facing women who are diagnosed with breast cancer is predicting the likelihood that the cancer will spread to other parts of the body — metastasize. Researchers from UC San Diego are looking to change that. UCSD bioengineering professor Trey Ideker is pioneering a more accurate approach for predicting the risk of breast cancer metastasis in individual patients.

Distant metastases are the main cause of death among breast cancer patients, but physicians have a hard time predicting if a patient’s breast cancer is likely to spread.

The researchers from UCSD and the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology took advantage of new protein interaction databases and identified networks of genes from breast cancer patients — rather than individual genes — that can be used to predict whether a breast cancer tumor is likely to spread.

Their results offer new mechanistic insights into breast cancer metastasis and are more accurate and reproducible than two sets of individual marker genes currently used to help predict the likelihood that a patient’s breast cancer will spread.

“Over the years, large numbers of women have endured unnecessarily harsh treatments, such as aggressive chemotherapy, due to our inability to predict metastasis risks with high accuracy. One of our goals is to improve this situation,” said Trey Ideker, a bioengineering professor from the UCSD Jacobs School of Engineering and the senior author of the new study.
You can read the full article in Science Daily – published: 17 Oct. 2007

Less invasive more accurate ’seed’ therapy for breast tumor removal

Physicians at UT Southwestern Medical Center are the first in Texas to use a new technique in which a small radioactive pellet, or “seed”, is implanted into a mass or suspicious lesion in the breast to pinpoint its exact location for surgical removal.

During the procedure, a radiologist uses a needle to insert a small radioactive seed, about the size of a grain of rice, into the mass. Once lodged, surgeons use a wand that detects radioactivity to locate the mass and find the best pathway for removal.

“The new technique is less invasive for the patient and allows us to be more precise when removing possible breast-cancer tumors,” said Dr. Roshni Rao, a surgical oncologist who specializes in breast cancer.
You can read the full article in Medical News Today – published: 15 Oct. 2007

Breast cancer radiation won’t hurt immune health

Neither of two commonly used radiation treatments for early-stage breast cancer has any negative effect on a patient’s immune system, concludes a Loyola University Health System pilot study.

“One of the first questions a woman newly diagnosed with breast cancer asks is, ‘What impact will radiation have on my body?’ This study helps allay some fears,” lead author Dr. Kevin Albuquerque, a radiation oncologist, said in a prepared statement.

The study did find that women who received five-day partial-breast radiation therapy (PBRT) had more energy and better quality of life than women who had whole-breast radiation therapy (WBRT).

The researchers noted that WBRT had been the standard of care for early-stage, small-tumor, node-negative breast cancer but, in the past five years, PBRT has become common in cancer centers across North America.
You can read the full article in MedicineNet – published: 12 Oct. 2007

A ‘Smart Bra’ to find breast cancer?

Could your bra one day detect breast cancer? One team of researchers in the United Kingdom says it is moving closer to a prototype for such an undergarment.

Called a “smart bra,” the device incorporates a series of microwave antennae to detect temperature changes in the breast that point to early stage breast cancer.

Professor Elias Siores, director of the Centre for Research and Innovation at the University of Bolton in the United Kingdom and inventor of the smart bra, says the device can detect cancer before the tumor can develop and spread into the surrounding areas.

The concept at play is known as thermography, the detection of subtle temperature changes within the breast. Spot elevations in temperature, Siores says, could denote an increase to blood flow to a developing tumor.
You can read the full article in ABC News – published: 12 Oct. 2007

Breast cancer can be caused by enhanced DNA-repair mechanism

Although defects in the “breast cancer gene,” BRCA1, have been known for years to increase the risk for breast cancer, exactly how it can lead to tumor growth has remained a mystery. In the October 15, 2007, issue of the journal Cancer Research, scientists from the University of Chicago and Kyoto University, Japan, suggest that a mechanism that normally repairs damaged DNA may function abnormally in BRCA1 carriers leading to one type of poor-prognosis breast cancer.

Their findings provide insight into how the normal BRCA1 gene suppresses the growth of tumors as well as the nature of the genetic instability that leads to cancer when BRCA1 is defective.

“If you take a normal, healthy cell and get rid of BRCA1, you end up with an unhealthy, slow-growing cell,” said Douglas Bishop, PhD, associate professor of radiation and cellular oncology at Chicago and principal investigator of the study. “That’s a bit of a paradox, because loss of BRCA1 also causes tumors and tumor formation is not normally associated with poor cell growth.”

Bishop and colleagues found that the slow growth caused by loss of BRCA1 could be compensated for by increasing the amount of the DNA repair protein RAD51.
You can read the full article in Medical News Today – published: 16 Oct. 2007

HER-2 status predicts success of chemotherapy in breast cancer treatment

Researchers have found they can potentially target chemotherapy for breast cancer to only those women most likely to benefit, sparing the majority of patients from unnecessary side effects.

The multicenter study, led by University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center researchers, found women whose breast cancer expressed a protein called HER-2 were most likely to benefit from adding the drug Taxol to the chemotherapy regimen, while women whose tumors were fueled by estrogen but did not express HER-2 did not get any benefit from the added Taxol. About 15 percent to 20 percent of breast cancers express HER-2, and as many as three-quarters of breast cancers are so-called estrogen-receptor-positive.

“In general, chemotherapy for breast cancer has been a one-size-fits-all approach. Our decision to recommend it is based on whether a woman is at high risk of the breast cancer recurring, without any idea of whether she would benefit from the additional therapy. With this data we hope we will be able to focus chemotherapy on patients whom it’s most likely to help,” says lead study author Daniel Hayes, M.D., clinical director of the breast oncology program at the U-M Comprehensive Cancer Center. Hayes was the lead investigator on the study, which was run by the Cancer and Leukemia Group B through the Breast Cancer Intergroup of North America.
You can read the full article in Medical News Today – published: 11 Oct. 2007

Weight loss may improve breast cancer-related Lymphedema

According to the results of a study published in the journal Cancer, weight loss may significantly reduce breast cancer-related lymphedema in overweight women.

Lymphedema is the buildup of lymph fluid in the tissues just under the skin, resulting in swelling, tightness, and discomfort in the affected limb. Damage to or blockage of the lymph system is the cause of lymphedema, and in cancer patients, this damage is usually due to surgery or radiation therapy.

While there is no single treatment for lymphedema, steps can be taken to manage the symptoms, including compression of the area, a specific type of massage to increase lymph flow, and specialized exercises.
You can read the full article in Cancer Consultants – published: 19 Oct. 2007

Researchers find new gene linked to breast cancer

Researchers in a multicenter international study have identified a new gene that, if mutated, may increase a woman’s risk of breast cancer by more than a third.

Further, the researchers found that the gene, HMMR, interacts with the well-known breast cancer gene BRCA1. Alternations in either gene cause genetic instability and interfere with cell division, which could be apath to breast cancer developing. This leads researchers to not just a single gene, but a pathway that may be a potential target for treating or detecting breast cancer.
You can read the full article in Cancer News – published: 8 Oct. 2007

I will wait for you tomorrow, on Blogging for Boobs day, to stop by and leave here a comment. Let’s show that we care!

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Entry Filed under: Health