Patients with breast cancer with early stage disease that has spread to only one lymph node may not benefit from radiation after mastectomy, because of the low present-day risk of recurrence following modern surgery and systemic treatment, a finding that could one day change the course of therapy for thousands of women diagnosed each year, as per scientists at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer........
Scientists with the National Cancer Institute (NCI) have observed that the prevalence of tamoxifen use for the prevention of breast cancer among women without a personal history of breast cancer is very low. Tamoxifen can reduce the risk of developing breast cancer in women who are at increased risk for developing the disease. Details of this survey are reported in the recent issue of Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research........
Two new compounds created by a University of Central Florida professor show early promise for destroying breast cancer tumors. Associate Professor James Turkson's compounds disrupt the formation and spread of breast cancer tumors in tests on mice. The compounds, S3I-201 and S3I-M2001, break up a cancer-causing protein called STAT3, and scientists have observed no negative side effects so far........
Scientists at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have discovered a gene activity signature that predicts a high risk of cancer recurrence in certain breast tumors that have been treated with usually used chemotherapy drugs. Despite their resistance to drugs of the anthracycline class, the breast cancers bearing this gene signature will probably still be vulnerable to other types of chemotherapy agents, say researchers in a letter to be published in Nature Medicine on its Web site and later in a print edition. Thus, the findings could lead to a genetic test of breast cancers to help physicians choose the best initial therapy for an individual patient........
Digital mammograms take longer to interpret than film-screen mammograms, as per a research studyperformed at The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas. The study included four radiologists who interpreted 268 digital screening mammograms and 189 film-screening mammograms. "The average interpretation time for all of our readers was 240 seconds (4 minutes) for digital screening mammograms and 127 seconds (2 minutes, 7 seconds) for film-screen screening mammograms," said Tamara Miner Haygood, MD, main author of the study. "The digital screening mammograms took nearly twice as long to interpret as the film-screen screening mammograms," said Dr. Haygood........