Breast Cancer

CLEVELAND-Preliminary results suggest that breast cancer survivors who attend a 3-day nature retreat designed for women who have been treated for breast cancer may realize positive biological and psychological health benefits for as long as a year after the event.

A 15-year study published in the June 1, 1999, issue of Cancer offers further hope to premenopausal breast cancer patients who might want to bear children. According to the study of 520 women £ 40 years old, pregnancy after breast cancer diagnosis and successful treatment does not increase a patient’s risk for recurrence or death from the disease. This is particularly true for women with local disease at diagnosis.

NEW YORK-To increase enrollment in clinical trials, the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation of Dallas is launching a well-funded initiative. Issues to be addressed include overcoming barriers to participation by physicians as well as by patients, the organization’s founder, Nancy Brinker, said at a press briefing that included a panel of foundation leaders and physicians with expertise in clinical trials.

TOWSON, Md-Mammoscintig-raphy and sentinel node radiolocaliza-tion, “both hot topics at the leading edge of breast imaging,” are increasingly appropriate in the diagnosis and care of breast cancer, said Carlo Ludovico Maini, MD, director of nuclear medicine, Regina Elena National Cancer Institute, Rome, Italy.

DANBURY, Conn-Trex Medical Corporation has announced the launch of its Vision of Health Initiative, a new philanthropic program that will commit up to $100,000 a year to health education, research, and patient support programs across the country. Trex Medical has chosen the National Alliance of Breast Cancer Organizations (NABCO) as the first grant recipient. NABCO is a nonprofit organization providing information and resources on breast cancer.

NEW YORK-Premenopausal women who are at risk for breast cancer recurrence may benefit from a new chemopreventive agent, according to the lead researcher of a clinical trial of women with early stage breast cancer. And the agent holds promise for use as a primary chemopreventive in healthy high-risk premenopausal women.

WASHINGTON-Older American women are more aware of mammography and are using the procedure for breast cancer screening in increasing numbers, but ignorance and misconceptions about mammography persist, according to a new survey.

BUFFALO, NY-The role of preoperative chemotherapy in breast cancer treatment is still being debated, according to speakers at the Surgical Oncology Symposium hosted by Roswell Park Cancer Institute.

Premenopausal women with early breast cancer have a significantly better chance of living longer when treated with a chemotherapy regimen that includes epirubicin (Ellence), as opposed to a current standard combination regimen, according to data presented at the 35th meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO).

DALLAS-Consumption of seaweed and soy may contribute to the lower rates of postmenopausal breast cancer seen in Japan, and seaweed/soy supplementation could be a potential cancer preventive in this country, Jane Teas, PhD, of the University of South Carolina, said at the Susan G. Komen Foundation National Grant Conference.

BUFFALO, NY-The National Surgical Adjuvant Breast and Bowel Project (NSABP) is currently conducting follow-up for a trial that may change the course of breast cancer treatment. The aim of trial B-18 is to determine whether surgery should remain the dominant treatment for breast cancer or should be considered as adjuvant therapy, Norman Wolmark, MD, said at a surgical oncology symposium, hosted by Roswell Park Cancer Institute. Dr. Wolmark is chair of the NSABP and chair of Human Oncology at Allegheny General Hospital.

EAST HANOVER, NJ-If you are a breast cancer patient with bone pain, don’t ignore it; see your doctor. That is the primary message behind an educational campaign Novartis Oncology is launching directly to patients. The campaign encourages women to pay attention to persistent bone pain if they have or have had breast cancer, and to notify their doctor about it. A critical component of the campaign is to help women understand that there are treatment options for metastatic bone pain.

SILVER SPRING, Md-The Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee (ODAC) unanimously recommended that the FDA approve Taxol (paclitaxel for injection, Bristol-Myers Squibb) for use in the adjuvant treatment of node-positive breast cancer administered sequentially to standard doxorubicin-based combination therapy.

For many women under 40 years of age with breast cancer, surgery to remove the cancerous lump and accompanying radiation therapy seem to be the best option for eradicating the disease and preserving the natural breast. However, for women who carry a damaged version of the BRCA1 or BRCA2 gene, thus predisposing them to breast cancer, such treatment may be insufficient. Researchers at Jefferson Medical College have found that these women are at greater risk years later of either relapsing or developing new tumors than are similarly treated women who do not carry one of these genes.

TOWSON, Maryland-“Mammography is still the gold standard for the screening and diagnosis of breast cancer, but that doesn’t mean it is always done right,” said Gilda Cardenosa, MD, head of breast imaging at the Cleveland Clinic. “There is a lot of bad mammography out there, even with all the regulations that are in place.”

The editor of Breast Cancer is Daniel F. Roses, MD, a professor of surgery at New York University and director of the Comprehensive Breast Cancer Center at that institution. Its contributors include Pat Borgen, MD, from Memorial Sloan-Kettering, Armando Giuliano, MD, from the University of California, Alison Estabrook, MD, from St. Luke’s Roosevelt Hospital, Frea Schnabel, MD, from Columbia-Presbyterian, David Page, MD, from Vanderbilt University, Larry Norton, MD, from Memorial Sloan-Kettering, and John Neiderhuber, MD, from the University of Wisconsin Medical Center. All of these notable individuals have made significant contributions to the management of patients with breast cancer.

WASHINGTON-The 18 members of the Board of Sponsors of the National Breast Cancer Awareness Month (NBCAM) campaign today challenged American employers to strengthen employee health care benefits and support for working women coping with breast cancer as well as those who seek information about prevention, early detection, treatment, and research.

ATLANTA-Results of three studies on the use of adjuvant endocrine therapy in premenopausal breast cancer patients suggest several “take-home messages,” I. Craig Henderson, MD, of the University of California, San Francisco, said at the 35th annual meeting of the American Association of Clinical Oncology (ASCO). In his discussion of the three papers at a session on local-regional treatment of breast cancer, he noted the following.

Nathaniel I. Berlin, MD, is currently Professor Emeritus at the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of Miami. He is the former director of the NCI’s Division of Cancer Biology and Diagnosis as well as the former chairman of the NCI’s Breast Cancer Task Force. He is also the former director and Professor Emeritus of the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center, Northwestern University, Chicago.

BUFFALO, NY-Prostate cancer screening protocols and treatment for localized prostate cancer are less standardized than for other cancers such as breast cancer, and treatment choices remain difficult for many men and their physicians, Jerome P. Richie, MD, said at the Surgical Oncology Symposium, hosted by Roswell Park Cancer Institute.

STOCKHOLM, Sweden-Premenopausal breast cancer patients who received 2 years of treatment with the LHRH analogue goserelin (Zoladex) showed significantly improved event-free survival, reduction of contralateral breast cancers, and a trend toward improved overall survival, Lars Rutqvist, MD, of the Karolinska Hospital in Stockholm, Sweden, reported at the 35th annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) in Atlanta.

ATLANTA-In an attempt to find ways to improve the prognosis for breast cancer in very young women, the International Breast Cancer Study Group (IBCSG) looked back at outcomes in 3,700 premenopausal and perimenopau-sal patients who had been treated in four randomized controlled trials between 1978 and 1993. Results of that analysis were presented at a poster session at the 35th annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO).

A new decision-making model developed by Dr.Giovanni Parmigiani and colleagues at Duke University has shown that the routine use of axillary lymph node dissection may not be necessary for many breast cancer patients. Recently, the use of

ATLANTA-“Herceptin combined with interleukin 2 (IL-2) is an active, well-tolerated regimen that has produced a clinical response in 4 of 25 breast cancer patients,” said Gini Fleming, MD, assistant professor of clinical medicine, Hematology/Oncology Section, University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine.

SAN DIEGO-In preclinical studies, Ligand Pharmaceuticals’ Targretin (LGD1069, also known as bexarotene) plus tamoxifen (Nolvadex) produced a response rate of 94% in tamoxifen-resistant breast tumors, compared with 33% for long-term tamoxifen therapy alone, said Ligand scientist Eric Bischoff.

Symptoms related to estrogen deficiency are among the most common complaints that postmenopausal breast cancer patients bring to the attention of oncologists. Menopause develops in these patients either naturally or prematurely as a result of cancer chemotherapy and/or endocrine therapy.

BALTIMORE-In a study of 1,504 premenopausal women with node-positive, receptor-positive breast cancer, the combination of tamoxifen (Nolvadex), goserelin (Zoladex), and CAF chemotherapy reduced the relative risk of breast cancer recurrence by 26%, compared with CAF alone.

Paclitaxel (Taxol) provides a nearly 40% improvement in survival with good quality of life in patients with metastatic breast cancer, according to a landmark study led by James F. Bishop, MD, director of the Sydney Cancer Centre and Professor of

WASHINGTON-A US federal court has granted a preliminary injunction barring Eli Lilly and Company and its sales representatives from promoting its drug Evista (raloxifene ) as effective in reducing the risk of breast cancer.

NEW YORK-The first clinical trials of a live genetically engineered Salmonella typhimurium bacterium are expected to get underway in the second half of this year in patients with cutaneous metastases of melanoma and breast cancer.