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Researchers have developed a quantitative multiplexed methylation-specific polymerase chain reaction assay called cMethDNA for a panel of 10 breast cancer–specific genes. The blood-based assay was found to be highly sensitive in detecting advanced breast cancer and monitoring tumor burden and ...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by Buchholz et al, ASCO has endorsed the recently published Society of Surgical Oncology (SSO) and American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) consensus guideline on margins for breast-conserving surgery with whole-breast irradiation in stage I...
Loss of the tumor suppressor PTEN was a frequent cause of resistance to the investigational drug BYL719, which blocks the activity of the PI3K-alpha protein, in a small sample of women with breast cancer that progressed after initially responding to BYL719 treatment, according to results presented...
Resistance to a combination of HER2-targeted therapies, trastuzumab (Herceptin) and lapatinib (Tykerb), was associated with elevated activation of a group of proteins called fibroblast growth factor receptors (FGFRs), which are the target of a number of drugs currently being developed, according to ...
Findings from the I-SPY 2 randomized phase II clinical trial for women with newly diagnosed stage II breast cancer show that a neoadjuvant regimen containing the investigational drug neratinib, a pan-HER inhibitor, and standard chemotherapy is beneficial for patients with hormone...
The novel oral drug LY2835219, an inhibitor of cyclin-dependent kinases (CDK) 4 and 6, showed early promise as monotherapy for patients with metastatic breast cancer, particularly for those with hormone receptor–positive disease, according to results of a phase I study presented at the...
First-line treatment with the combination of palbociclib plus letrozole extended progression-free survival by approximately 50% in patients with metastatic estrogen receptor–positive, HER2-negative breast cancer, according to final results of a randomized phase II study presented at the...
A large study of over 12,000 women who took clomiphene citrate or gonadotropins for the treatment of infertility has found no increase in breast cancer risk over 30 years of follow-up, compared with women who were not treated with these medications. The study by Brinton et al is published in Cancer ...
Doctors should focus on life expectancy when deciding whether to order mammograms for their oldest female patients, since the harms of screening likely outweigh the benefits unless women are expected to live at least another decade, according to a review published online in JAMA by Walter and...
Population-based screening with full-field digital mammography is associated with lower recall and biopsy rates than screen-film mammography, suggesting that full-field digital mammography may reduce the number of diagnostic workups and biopsies that do not lead to diagnosis of breast cancer,...
In a study reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, van de Water et al found that Dutch women with hormone receptor–positive breast cancer aged ≥ 65 years at diagnosis who were treated in a clinical trial had significantly fewer comorbid diseases, higher socioeconomic...
Physicians have long suspected that chemotherapy can accelerate the aging process in patients treated for cancer. Using a test developed at UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center to determine molecular aging, oncologists have directly measured the impact of anticancer chemotherapy drugs on...
In the phase III IBIS-II trial, reported in The Lancet, Cuzick et al found that aromatase inhibitor therapy with anastrozole reduced risk of breast cancer in postmenopausal women at high risk of the disease. Study Details In this double-blind trial, 3,864 postmenopausal women aged 40 to 70 years...
Scientists from Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, and Houston Methodist, Houston, have found that a gene previously unassociated with breast cancer plays a pivotal role in the growth and progression of the triple-negative form of the disease. The research by Chen et al, published in Nature,...
As reported by Gianni et al in The Lancet Oncology, long-term follow-up of women with HER2-positive locally advanced breast cancer receiving neoadjuvant chemotherapy alone vs with neoadjuvant and adjuvant trastuzumab (Herceptin) in the phase III NOAH trial has shown continued event-free survival...
Patients with early-stage breast cancer who underwent sentinel lymph node dissection experienced lymphedema more frequently than clinically suspected and with increasing incidence over time, according to a presentation at the 2014 Society of Surgical Oncology (SSO) Cancer Symposium in Phoenix...
Analysis of data from the UK NHS Breast Screening Programme has shown significant variations in the outcomes of treatment for women with ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) between UK hospitals. Dr. Jeremy Thomas, a consultant pathologist at the Western General Hospital, Edinburgh, told the 9th...
A review by ASCO’s Update Committee of new data from randomized clinical trials has led to a change in recommendations for the use of sentinel lymph node biopsy in patients with early-stage breast cancer. The updated guideline will enable more women with early-stage breast cancer to avoid the ...
Extending national breast cancer screening programs to women over the age of 70 does not result in a decrease in the number of cancers detected at advanced stages, according to new research from The Netherlands. Instead, researchers told attendees at the 9th European Breast Cancer Conference that...
Both obesity and diabetes have adverse effects on outcomes in breast cancer patients who receive neoadjuvant chemotherapy, according to research presented at the 9th European Breast Cancer Conference. Although a high body mass index (BMI) is known to have a negative impact on cancer development and ...
Participating in athletic activities for more than an hour a day reduces the risk of breast cancer, and this applies to women of any age and any weight, regardless of geographic location, according to research presented at the 9th European Breast Cancer Conference in Glasgow. Compared with the...
Genetic analyses of results from 1,125 postmenopausal women being treated for estrogen-responsive breast cancer have shown that some of them are more likely than others to have a late recurrence of their cancer and might benefit from 10 years of hormone therapy rather than 5 years. Women who had...
Women whose breast cancer has spread to just a few lymph nodes under their arm are less likely to have their disease recur or to die from it if they have radiotherapy after mastectomy, according to new research presented today at the European Breast Cancer Conference in Glasgow and published in The ...
In a pooled analysis of individual patient data reported in The Lancet Oncology, Bidard et al found that baseline circulating tumor cell counts and increases in counts during treatment were highly prognostic in patients with metastatic breast cancer beginning new treatment and that addition of...
Short telomeres are associated with increased risk of cancer, but data on telomere length and mortality in breast cancer survivors are inconsistent. In a study reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Duggan et al found that decreases in telomere length between baseline and 30...
In a companion study (MA.27B) to the open-label phase III National Cancer Institute of Canada Clinical Trials Group (NCIC CTG) MA.27 trial in women with early breast cancer reported in The Lancet Oncology, Goss et al found that adjuvant aromatase inhibitor treatment with exemestane, a mildly...
In a study reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Théberge et al evaluated the association between radiologist interpretive volume and breast cancer screening accuracy in the Quebec Breast Cancer Screening Program. They found that accuracy increased with increasing volume, ...
Although it is recommended that women aged ≥ 75 years be informed of the benefits and risks of mammography before being screened, it appears that this is not common practice. As reported in JAMA Internal Medicine by Schonberg et al, a decision aid developed by the investigators helped improved...
Little is known about how fertility concerns affect treatment decisions or fertility preservation strategies at the time of initial diagnosis of breast cancer. In an ongoing multicohort study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Ruddy et al found that most young women with breast cancer...
In a phase IIB study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Guarneri et al compared neoadjuvant letrozole plus lapatinib (Tykerb) or placebo in postmenopausal women with hormone receptor–positive, HER2-negative breast cancer. Response rates were similar in the two groups, but a...
Many breast cancer survivors experience fatigue and other debilitating symptoms that persist months to years after their course of treatment has ended. Now researchers at the Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University have found clues that may explain how these symptoms can linger. Chemotherapy...
For women with breast cancer undergoing radiation therapy, yoga offers unique benefits beyond fighting fatigue, according to a study by Chandwani et al published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. While simple stretching activities counteracted fatigue, patients who participated in yoga exercises ...
In a study reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Brinton et al assessed the role of anthropometric, medical history, and hormone-related factors in male breast cancer in the Male Breast Cancer Pooling Project. Factors found to be associated with risk included height,...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Jagsi et al found that use of breast reconstruction in patients with breast cancer undergoing mastectomy has increased over time but varies according to a number of treatment and demographic characteristics. Study Details The study involved ...
A common compound known to fight lymphoma and skin conditions actually has a second method of action that makes it particularly deadly against certain aggressive breast tumors, according to a study reported by Xia et al in PLOS ONE. The compound, psoralen, is a natural component found in foods such ...
There is currently a lack of reliable methods for distinguishing ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) that would never become symptomatic from DCIS that is likely to progress to life-threatening invasive cancer. Spurred by uncertainty about the optimal clinical management of DCIS, researchers have...
Pathologic complete response has been proposed as a surrogate endpoint for long-term clinical benefit in breast cancer. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) established the international Collaborative Trials in Neoadjuvant Breast Cancer working group to perform a pooled analysis of...
New research from the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center and Georgia Regents University has found that a protein that regulates an inflammatory pathway does not turn off in breast cancer, resulting in an increase in cancer stem cells. This finding may provide a potential target for...
Using whole-genome mRNA-expression profiling, researchers have identified three molecular subtypes of muscle-invasive bladder cancers that shared molecular features with basal and luminal breast cancers. The findings have important implications for prognostication, the future clinical development...
In a population-based study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Vaz-Luis et al assessed duration and toxicity of adjuvant trastuzumab (Herceptin) in older patients with early-stage breast cancer. They found that age and comorbidity affected treatment completion rates and that significant...
The 20-year follow-up of the Swedish Uppsala/Örebro trial, reported by Wickberg et al in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, shows that improved control of recurrence over 5 years with radiotherapy after sector resection in patients with stage I breast cancer is followed by similar...
In the SAFIR01/UNICANCER study reported in The Lancet Oncology, André et al used comparative genomic hybridization and Sanger sequencing on metastatic breast cancer biopsy samples to determine the proportion of cases in which targeted therapy could be offered. They found that screening...
As reported in BMJ by Miller et al, the 25-year follow-up of the Canadian National Breast Screening Study has shown no mortality benefit of annual mammography screening for breast cancer compared with physical examination or usual care. Mammography screening was associated with...
Scientists from the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) have uncovered the possible genetic origins of breast cancers that metastasize to the brain. The compendium of new genetic targets may be be used to identify potential methods of diagnosis and novel therapeutics for patients with...
The Society of Surgical Oncology (SSO) and American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) formed a multidisciplinary expert panel in 2013 to examine the relationship between surgical margin width and ipsilateral breast tumor recurrence and develop guidelines on margins for breast-conserving...
As mammography screening has shifted to digital technology, a range of computed radiography and direct radiography systems have emerged. Digital mammography screening with a new photon-counting technique offers high diagnostic performance, according to a study reported by Weigel et al in Radiology. ...
When comparing treatments designed to enable long-term breast preservation for older women with invasive breast cancer, researchers found those treated with brachytherapy were at higher risk for a later mastectomy, compared to women treated with standard radiation therapy. The findings, published...
Isolated locoregional recurrence of breast cancer is associated with high risk of distant metastasis and death. In the CALOR trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Aebi et al found that adjuvant chemotherapy after complete resection improves disease-free survival in patients with isolated...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Kiecolt-Glaser et al found that yoga reduced levels of inflammatory cytokines and fatigue and increased vitality in breast cancer survivors. Study Details In the study, 200 women with stage 0 to IIIA breast cancer who had completed...
Although controversial, reducing mammography screening frequency from annually to biennially for women aged 50 to 74 could save the health-care system billions of dollars annually and screen 15% more women compared with the current practice, according to a cost analysis by O’Donoghue et al....