Breast Cancer

COLUMBUS, Ohio--Many of the diagnostic tests and procedures following treatment for breast cancer fail to extend survival, as demonstrated by two randomized, prospective studies and nine retrospective studies, said Victor G. Vogel, MD, MHS, director of the Comprehensive Breast Cancer Program at the University of Pittsburgh.

An expert panel of 10 international cancer researchers and practicing oncologists met in Boston to discuss the past, present, and future uses of antiestrogens in the treatment of breast cancer.

Steven T. Rosen, MD, FACP, director of the Robert H. Lurie Cancer Center of Northwestern University, announced that the Center has received a 4-year grant in the amount of $4.27 million from the US Army Medical Research and Materiel

PALM SPRINGS, Calif--A large body of research on toremifene (Fareston) has been accumulated in research carried out over more than a decade in Europe, the United States, and the former Soviet Union, John T. Hamm, MD, of the University of Louisville and Alliant Health Systems, said in his presentation on the phase II trials of the agent.

SAN ANTONIO--Hormone responsiveness is one of the few prognostic markers for breast cancer that actually predicts a better prognosis, Benita S. Katzenellenbogen, PhD, said in her William L. McGuire Memorial Lecture at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.

BETHESDA, Md--The American Medical Writers Association is accepting applications for the 1997 Rose Kushner Awards for Writing Achievement in the Field of Breast Cancer. A cash award of $1,000 for the winning entry in each of five categories will be provided through a grant from Zeneca Pharmaceuticals.

CHICAGO--Scintimammogra-phy, a nuclear medicine procedure developed in the early 1990s, has potential as a diagnostic tool for identifying breast cancer in women whose disease hides within dense tissue, said Janet Baum, MD, a radiologist at New England Deaconess Hospital, Boston

An expert panel of 10 international cancer researchers and practicing oncologists met in Boston to discuss the past, present, and future uses of antiestrogens in the treatment of breast cancer. The first articles in this series, based on the symposium presentations, focused on the optimal duration of tamoxifen use (Oct, 1996, page 17) and on the noncancer benefits of tamoxifen weighed against the potential risk of endometrial cancer (Nov, 1996, page 55). This month, the benign endometrial changes associated with tamoxifen use are reviewed. The symposium was sponsored by Zeneca Pharmaceuticals.

NEW YORK--The Avon Breast Health Access Fund has awarded a grant of $23,961 to Cancer Care for a program to increase awareness of the life-saving benefits of early breast cancer detection among low-income Orthodox Jewish women in New York City. Cancer Care is a nonprofit organization that provides free professional services to people with cancer and their families,

NEW YORK--The National Alliance of Breast Cancer Organizations (NABCO) has just published the 1996-1997 edition of the NABCO Breast Cancer Resource List, made possible through an educational grant from Glaxo Wellcome Inc

Although radiation therapy following lumpectomy for lymph node-negative breast cancer significantly reduces both local and distant disease recurrence, overall mortality is not substantially better in women who receive radiation than in those who do not, according to a Canadian study update report in the November 20th Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

Breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed nondermatologic cancer and the second leading cause of cancer-related deaths among women in the United States. In 1996, a total of 184,300 new cases of and 44,300 deaths from invasive breast cancer are projected among women. To assess trends in incidence and death rates for breast cancer among US women, the CDC analyzed national incidence data from the National Cancer Institute's Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) program and death-certificate data from the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS).

A national study underway at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) will determine whether breast cancer patients can benefit from a biopsy procedure that has been successfully used for skin cancer patients. Patients with melanoma, the most serious kind of skin cancer, have benefited from an advance that has reduced the pain and complications of surgery performed to ascertain whether their cancer has spread.

NEW YORK--When diagnosed with breast cancer, "women have very different coping styles," Amy Langer said at a media briefing on molecular diagnostics in breast cancer, sponsored by Pharmacia Biotech.

NEW YORK--There is sufficient evidence that the timing of breast cancer surgery affects outcome to warrant further inquiry, William J. Hrushesky, MD, said at the 14th Chemotherapy Foundation Symposium.

Long-term exposure to estrogen, as measured by bone mineral density, can more than double the risk of breast cancer, according to a study led by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh and reported in the November 5th issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association. Estrogen replacement therapy is often prescribed in women during menopause to reduce hot flashes and other uncomfortable symptoms of this transitional period.

WASHINGTON--In an extraordinary decision, the steering committee of the National Action Plan on Breast Cancer (NAPBC) voted to reject nearly the entire $14.75 million that Congress provided it for use in fiscal year 1997.

WAYNE, NJ-Initial testing of the Symptom Experience Scale (SES), designed to measure women's experiences of symptoms associated with treatment for breast cancer, found six factors that used all 24 SES items and accounted for 83% of the variance, report Nelda Samarel, EdD, RN, of William Paterson College of New Jersey, and her colleagues.

WILMINGTON, Del-The Breast Cancer Patient Education Service, recently established by Zeneca Pharmaceuticals, allows breast cancer patients and their families to obtain patient education materials on tamoxifen (Nolvadex) with one phone call.

A team of researchers at Ohio State University's Comprehensive Cancer Center have isolated and cloned a gene that may play a role in breast cancer.

The option of reconstruction after mastectomy for breast cancer is often not discussed with indigent patients, according to a study presented at the 65th Annual Meeting of the American Society of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeons (ASPRS) held in Dallas, Texas.

WASHINGTON--Breast cancer mortality continues to drop among white women in the United States, Canada, and Great Britain, and, for the first time, it has dropped in black American women, NCI Director Richard Klausner said in his delivery of the 6th Annual Jo Oberstar Memorial Lecture at the George Washington University School of Medicine.

NEW YORK-Screening for breast cancer in the workplace saves money as well as lives, according to a study commissioned by Zeneca Inc. To emphasize this important message to business, the results were presented in a news conference held on Wall Street at the New York Stock Exchange.

BETHESDA, Md-NIH plans a consensus development conference to assess the most recent data on the efficacy of mammography in screening women age 40 to 49 for breast cancer. The agency plans to convene the conference on January 21-23, 1997, on the NIH Bethesda campus.

NEW YORK-DNA sequencing is the gold standard for determining the presence or absence of p53 mutations in breast tumors, said Jorge A. Leon, PhD, corporate director for biotechnology research and development, Corning Nichols Institute/Corning Clinical Laboratories.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala--In 1994, the Comprehensive Cancer Center of the University of Alabama at Birmingham commissioned photojournalist Melissa Springer to create an exhibit celebrating breast cancer survivors. Her finished project has now been published as A Tribe of Warrior Women.

CHICAGO--The Truquant BR RIA blood test (manufactured by Biomira Diagnostics, Inc.) has been shown to be a highly specific predictor of recurrent breast cancer. In clinical trials, positive test results predicted relapse 83% of the time, providing as much as a 12-month (average, 5 month) warning over clinical symptoms and/or other diagnostic methods for breast cancer recurrence.

Researchers at Duke University Comprehensive Cancer Center have found that a newly identified liver cancer gene is also defective in more aggressive breast tumors that may not respond to certain common types of chemotherapy.

NEW YORK--Michael Korda, best-selling author and editor-in-chief and vice president of Simon and Schuster, had never heard of PSA until a routine test showed that his was elevated; he had never thought about prostate cancer as something that could happen to him. After all, he was asymptomatic, a "fanatic exerciser," had given up smoking 20 years ago, and ate carefully.

OKLAHOMA CITY--Project Wo-man, a committee of the American Cancer Society (ACS)--has published a book depicting the experiences of Oklahoma women with breast cancer as expressed by the women themselves, their friends, children, and other loved ones through stories, photographs, and artwork (see illustrations at right and on page 1).