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Breast Cancer

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SAN ANTONIO-A pharmaceutical alternative to prophylactic oophorectomy as a means of inducing menopause and reducing the likelihood of breast cancer in young women at high genetic risk is under investigation at the City of Hope National Medical Center.

WASHINGTON-Surgeons in community hospitals as well as in university-based cancer centers can successfully find sentinel lymph nodes (SLNs) in breast cancer patients for biopsy, Douglas S. Reintgen, MD, of the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center, University of South Florida, Tampa, said at the 54th Annual Cancer Symposium of the Society of Surgical Oncology (SSO).

SAN ANTONIO-Fulvestrant (Faslodex), an estrogen-receptor (ER) downregulator (see Figure), appears to be at least as good as the aromatase inhibitor anastrozole (Arimidex) as second-line therapy in postmenopausal women with advanced breast cancer who had progressed or recurred on prior endocrine therapy.

CHICAGO-Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) mammography was able to detect eight of nine breast malignancies, some of which had been missed on conventional film mammography, in 196 young women at high risk for hereditary breast cancer.

SAN ANTONIO-The gonadotropin hormone-releasing hormone agonist analog goserelin (Zoladex) is an alternative to adjuvant chemotherapy for women with early breast cancer who are pre- or perimenopausal and have estrogen-receptor (ER)-positive tumors, said Walter Jonat, MD, of the University of Kiel, Germany. He spoke at the 23rd Annual San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium on behalf of the Zoladex Early Breast Cancer Research Association (ZEBRA).

Dr. Julie Olin has highlighted an important issue for patients and providers contemplating systemic therapy for breast cancer: how the brain works after such treatment. Her excellent article summarizes four important studies, identifies the research design problems and questions raised by these and other studies, and proposes a model for how chemohormonal therapy might affect cognitive functioning and quality of life (see Figure 1 of her article). Finally, she identifies how actual, as well as potential, cognitive impairment might influence patient decisions and care (the author’s Table 1).

According to data presented at the American Society of Hematology (ASH) meeting and the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, elderly cancer patients may be up to two times as likely as younger patients to receive chemotherapy doses

FORT LAUDERDALE, Florida-A panel of breast cancer experts has revised the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) breast cancer guideline to reflect an evolution rather than change. "The differences between this and last year’s guidelines are overall meaningful but subtle," Robert W. Carlson, MD, of Stanford Hospitals and Clinics, said at the Sixth Annual NCCN Conference.

SAN ANTONIO-By using a system combining color-based imaging and automated microscopy, pathologists were able to significantly improve their accuracy in evaluating HER-2 protein expression in breast cancer tissue, said Kenneth Bloom, MD, of Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke’s Medical Center, Chicago.

WASHINGTON-Despite some promising new technologies, traditional x-ray film mammography remains the gold standard in screening for breast cancer, a committee of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) has concluded.

BETHESDA, Md-A study of breast cancer patients with hereditary BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations or sporadic cancers has shown a distinctive gene-expression profile for each type of breast cancer gene mutation and also revealed an unanticipated finding-a patient with a nonhereditary BRCA1 mutation.

BETHESDA, Md-General Motors Corp. is mailing information on the opportunity for a breast cancer risk assessment, available through the Study of Tamoxifen and Raloxifene (STAR), to 140,000 of its active and retired salaried female

The article by Dr. William Small on the role of radiation therapy in the treatment of breast cancer is a comprehensive review of the current standards of care and highlights the controversies surrounding recent trends. Breast cancer treatment has come full circle in the last 20 years, with emphasis now being placed on technical advances and treatment techniques as new data substantiate the impact of radiation therapy on survival following local surgery and mastectomy.