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In a study reported in The Lancet, Hersch et al found that use of a decision aid containing information on overdetection in breast cancer screening was associated with an increased rate of informed choice regarding screening, a reduced rate of positive attitudes toward screening, and reduced...
As reported in The New England Journal of Medicine by Swain et al, the final prespecified overall survival analysis in the phase III CLEOPATRA study showed a significant 15.7-month increase in median overall survival over 50 months of follow-up with the addition of pertuzumab (Perjeta) to...
In the phase III CEREBEL study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Pivot et al compared lapatinib (Tykerb)-capecitabine vs trastuzumab (Herceptin)-capecitabine in the prevention of central nervous system (CNS) metastases as first relapse site in patients with metastatic HER2-positive...
Improved prognosis for women with estrogen receptor–positive breast cancer who experience a large reduction in mammographic density following the initiation of tamoxifen treatment extends to premenopausal as well as postmenopausal women, researchers reported in the Journal of the National...
Emergency room visits and hospitalizations are common among patients with early breast cancer receiving chemotherapy, particularly among those receiving a regimen containing docetaxel, according to a report by Enright et al in the Journal of Oncology Practice. “In this population-based cohort ...
In a Spanish-German phase III LEA trial reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Martín et al found that adding bevacizumab (Avastin) to endocrine therapy with letrozole or fulvestrant (Faslodex) in the first-line treatment of postmenopausal women with advanced breast cancer did not...
Sensor technology has the potential to significantly improve the teaching of proper technique for clinical breast exams, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. The results of the study were published in a correspondence in The...
In the American College of Surgeons Oncology Group Z1071 trial, sentinel lymph node surgery after neoadjuvant chemotherapy was associated with a 12.6% false-negative rate in breast cancer patients with cN1 disease. In an analysis of axillary ultrasound findings in the trial, a secondary endpoint,...
In an analysis from the European Prospective Investigation Into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, de Batlle and colleagues found reduced risks of estrogen receptor–negative and progesterone receptor–negative breast cancer for highest...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Wolff et al found a low but higher-than-expected incidence of marrow neoplasms in patients receiving adjuvant radiation therapy or chemotherapy for breast cancer. The study used the National Comprehensive Cancer Network Breast Cancer...
In a Swedish study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Holm et al found that interval cancers in women with low mammographic density breasts were more aggressive vs screen-detected cancers in these women and vs interval cancers in women with dense breasts. Use of hormone replacement...
In women who have undergone mastectomy, those who underwent delayed breast reconstruction experienced greater cancer-related distress over the long term compared with women who underwent mastectomy alone, according to a prospective study by Metcalfe et al in the Journal of Surgical Oncology. For...
In a phase III trial to assess whether whole-breast irradiation could be omitted in women aged ≥ 65 years with early-stage breast cancer undergoing breast-conserving surgery and receiving adjuvant endocrine treatment, Kunkler et al found increased risk of local recurrence in women not receiving...
Researchers at Roswell Park Cancer Institute (RPCI) have uncovered new information that may begin to explain why many African American women are more likely to be diagnosed with aggressive, often deadly forms of breast cancer. Their findings also strengthen evidence that increased dietary folate...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Perez et al found that an immune function gene profile was associated with significantly improved relapse-free survival among patients with early-stage HER2-positive breast cancer who had trastuzumab (Herceptin) added to adjuvant chemotherapy ...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has granted accelerated approval to palbociclib (Ibrance) in combination with letrozole for the treatment of postmenopausal women with estrogen receptor–positive, HER2-negative metastatic breast cancer who have not yet received an endocrine-based therapy. ...
Ten months after California legislators enacted a controversial law mandating that radiologists notify women if they have dense breast tissue, University of California (UC), Davis researchers have found that half of primary care physicians are still unfamiliar with the law, and many don't feel...
Some data suggest that migraine is associated with reduced risk of breast cancer. In a prospective cohort study reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Winter et al found no association between migraine and breast cancer risk or endogenous sex hormone levels. A meta-analysis...
As reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology by McCormick et al, the Radiation Therapy Oncology Group (RTOG) 9804 trial showed that radiotherapy after breast-conserving surgery reduced local failure vs observation in women with good-risk ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS). The study was designed...
A population-based study of women who had undergone surgery for breast cancer has found that many lacked understanding of the basic characteristics of their disease, including stage, grade, and tumor characteristics. Minority patients were less likely than white patients to have the correct...
A new breast imaging technique developed at Mayo Clinic nearly quadruples detection rates of invasive breast cancers in women with dense breast tissue, according to the results of a study published by Rhodes et al in the American Journal of Roentgenology. What Is MBI? Molecular breast imaging...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Mittendorf et al found no differences in recurrence-free, disease-specific, or overall survival between patients with American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC) stage IA breast cancer and those with stage IB disease. Estrogen receptor status...
A new study from researchers at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center characterizes the genetic underpinnings of phyllodes tumors, a rare type of breast tumor. The study offers the first comprehensive analysis of the molecular alterations at work in these tumors, according to Cani...
In the phase II SN FNAC (Sentinel Node Biopsy Following Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy) trial, reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Boileau et al found a sentinel node biopsy false-negative rate of 8.4% with mandatory use of immunohistochemistry and a sentinel node biopsy identification rate of...
Patients with early-stage breast cancer still undergo imaging for distant metastases despite evidence-based local, national, and international guidelines, and a recommendation from ASCO to avoid such imaging, according to a retrospective review of staging imaging for distant metastases in patients...
After 4.5 years of taking tamoxifen for primary prevention of breast cancer, 46% of women discontinued use, according to research conducted within the Sister Study, a prospective cohort of women who had a sister who had been diagnosed with breast cancer but did not have breast cancer themselves....
In a phase II trial reported in Journal of Clinical Oncology, Dang et al found that the addition of weekly paclitaxel to trastuzumab (Herceptin)/pertuzumab (Perjeta) produced good activity in patients with HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer. Paclitaxel may be a less toxic alternative to...
Among nearly 375,000 U.S. women diagnosed with invasive breast cancer, the likelihood of diagnosis at an early stage, and survival after stage I diagnosis, varied by race and ethnicity, with much of the difference accounted for by biologic differences, according to a study reported by Iqbal et al...
Retrospective analyses of the ATAC, TEAM, and BIG 1-98 adjuvant endocrine therapy trials in breast cancer have suggested that treatment-emergent endocrine symptoms may be associated with superior survival outcomes. In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Stearns et al found no...
In a national retrospective cohort study reported in JAMA Surgery, Kummerow et al found that an increased proportion of women with breast cancer eligible for breast-conserving surgery have undergone mastectomy during recent years. The study involved data from > 1.2 million women with...
A phase II clinical study of adjuvant paclitaxel and trastuzumab (Herceptin) in women with stage I HER2-positive breast cancer has found the 3-year rate of survival free from invasive disease was 98.7%. The findings may help establish the combination therapy as the first standard treatment approach ...
In a meta-analysis of patients with breast cancer–related lymphedema, low-level laser therapy was associated with reduced limb volume and pain levels, according to a report by Smoot et al in the Journal of Cancer Survivorship. However, the investigators noted that regarding pain management,...
In a Canadian study reported in Journal of Clinical Oncology, Cossetti and colleagues found that temporal patterns of breast cancer relapse according to estrogen receptor and HER2 status in the period 2004–2008 were similar to those in 1986–1992 but at markedly reduced relapse rates....
In the phase II PALOMA-1/TRIO-18 trial reported in The Lancet Oncology, Finn et al found that the addition of palbociclib to letrozole resulted in significant improvement in progression-free survival as first-line treatment for advanced disease in postmenopausal women with estrogen...
In the HOPE study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Irwin et al found that a program of aerobic exercise and strength training produced significant improvement in aromatase inhibitor–associated arthralgia in breast cancer survivors. Study Details In the study, 121 women with...
In a Canadian study reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Kremer et al found that postdiagnosis use only or pre-and postdiagnosis use of bisphosphonates for treatment or prevention of osteoporosis in postmenopausal women with breast cancer was associated with a significant...
In a study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Lepore et al found that patients assigned a helper role in a breast cancer Internet support group had worse anxiety/depression symptoms after completion of the intervention than those not assigned a helper role. Study Details In the study,...
In an Australian study reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, White et al found that a telephone-based peer-support intervention reduced breast cancer distress among women with a BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene mutation. Study Details In the study, 207 mutation carriers reporting interest in talking...
In a study reported in JAMA, Bekelman et al found that approximately two-thirds of patients with early-stage breast cancer for whom hypofractionated whole-breast irradiation is endorsed receive conventional whole-breast irradiation after breast-conserving surgery. Health-care expenditures were...
The addition of everolimus to weekly trastuzumab (Herceptin) plus paclitaxel did not improve outcomes in the phase III BOLERO-1/TRIO-019, but did provide a “signal” in the hormone receptor–negative subset. The study was reported at the 2014 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium by...
Among patients with advanced, hormone receptor–positive breast cancer who had not been treated previously for advanced disease, those who took fulvestrant (Faslodex) lived longer than those who took anastrozole, according to data from the phase II FIRST trial presented at the 2014 San Antonio ...
Ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), which accounts for 30% of all newly diagnosed breast cancer, is actually a precancerous lesion. A proportion of patients will have progression to invasive breast cancer, but up until recently, it has not been possible to identify which patients require further...
Among early-stage breast cancer patients who reduced their dietary fat intake for 5 years following a diagnosis, after over 15 years follow-up, death rates from all causes were significantly reduced in those who had hormone-unrelated breast cancer, according to data from the Women’s...
In a study reported in Journal of Clinical Oncology, Couch et al found a high frequency of inherited mutations in breast cancer susceptibility genes in a cohort of women with triple-negative breast cancer unselected for family history of breast or ovarian cancer. In the study, the frequency of...
In elderly breast cancer patients with moderate- to high-risk early-stage disease for whom standard chemotherapy is too toxic, capecitabine, which causes fewer side effects than standard chemotherapy agents, did not improve outcomes when tested as monotherapy, according to data from the phase III...
After a median of 16 years of following women at high risk for breast cancer, the International Breast Cancer Intervention Study-I (IBIS-I) trial found that tamoxifen significantly decreased the incidence of all breast cancers, according to data presented at the 2014 San Antonio Breast Cancer...
Among women with triple-negative breast cancer, both basal-like and non–basal-like tumors were equally likely to demonstrate a pathologic complete response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy, but they responded differently to exposure to carboplatin and bevacizumab (Avastin), in an analysis of the...
Results of the large international SOFT trial present a convincing argument for the addition of ovarian function suppression to adjuvant hormonal therapy to reduce the risk of recurrence in premenopausal women with hormone receptor–positive breast cancer at high enough risk to be treated with ...
Results from the largest series of male breast cancer cases ever studied showed that there was significant improvement in overall survival for male breast cancer patients over the duration of the study, but the improvement was not as good as has been seen for female breast cancer patients,...
Women with HER2-positive breast cancer who had high levels of immune cells in their tumors had a decreased risk of cancer recurrence after treatment with chemotherapy alone compared with their counterparts who had low levels of tumor-infiltrating immune cells, according to data presented at the...