Breast Cancer

This review explores the use of several such agents, including lapatinib (Tykerb), HSP90 inhibitors, T-DM1, and other tyrosine kinase inhibitors. Emerging data from trials of these agents indicate that the HER2 pathway remains a valid therapeutic target following disease progression on trastuzumab.

An increasing number of women diagnosed with breast cancer chose to undergo contralateral prophylactic mastectomy, but this option only showed a real survival benefit in women who met certain criteria in terms of age, disease stage, and disease status.

The low-cost imaging technique has value for determining the relative aggressiveness of inflammatory and advanced disease.

While optimal adjuvant hormonal therapies for premenopausal women with operable breast cancer have yet to be defined, discussions and reviews of the state of the art and “areas of confusion” often fail to consider developments that are germane to keeping evidence-based clinical practice truly up-to-date.

The article “Adjuvant Hormonal Therapy in Premenopausal Women With Operable Breast Cancer: Not-So-Peripheral Perspectives” by Richard Love, published in this issue of ONCOLOGY,

Research and development of adjuvant therapies for premenopausal women with endocrine-responsive breast cancer is unfortunately lacking.

After malignancies of the skin, breast cancer is the most common cancer

Traditionally host factors such as weight and physical activity have not been considered in the overall treatment of breast cancer patients. In this issue of ONCOLOGY, Nagaiah and Abraham review the epidemiologic and biologic evidence evaluating the relationships among obesity, physical activity, and both breast cancer recurrence and mortality, and in doing so, advocate weight management and exercise for breast cancer patients.

A weekly course of paclitaxel has proved itself effective in breast cancer and is feasible in ovarian cancer as well. But questions remain as to the actual benefits of a shorter treatment course.

When she learned that she had breast cancer, Patricia Garrett did what many people with cancer do: she continued working.

More than 2.5 million breast cancer survivors live in the US today.[1] This number will continue to grow thanks to early detection and advances in treatment that are making early stage breast cancer an increasingly curable disease.

A combination of two targeted therapies already shown to be effective in breast cancer

The patient, “TB,” is a 44-year-old Caucasian, married woman with three daughters, 21, 18, and 10 years of age.

Why doesn't cisplatin work very well against breast cancer? The first response of most researchers would be to invoke something about genetic responses, but a pair of biologists from the University of Cincinnati have raised a quite different proposalr: The unique hormonal milieu of the breast may contribute to chemoresistance.

The regimented and inflexible protocols that have long served as hallmarks of clinical trials are giving way to personalized medical research. A clinical trial begun last week at the University of California, San Francisco will use genetic and biological markers drawn from the tumors of individual patients to identify the treatments most likely to be effective for those participating in the trial.

Over the past decade, the oncology community has made significant progress in the development of highly effective treatment modalities for breast cancer. Moreover, our increasing knowledge of the molecular biology of cancer has engendered the potential to use gene expression profiling, molecular fingerprinting, and biomarkers to add increased, patient-specific value to our clinical decision making. More than ever, today’s clinician must keep up to date on the rapid scientific advances in breast cancer management.

Study in Asian population runs counter to previous concern that phytoestrogen in soy may increase disease risk.

Next-generation genomic assay technologies are revolutionizing our ability to characterize cancers at the genomic levels, providing critical prognostic and predictive information for individual patients with breast cancer, thereby helping to guide treatment decisions. According to Harold J. Burstein, MD, PhD, Associate Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, these emerging technologies will change the way we treat breast cancer.

For oncologists battling breast cancer in the clinic, one of the most difficult decisions is choosing the optimal adjuvant therapy, one that balances the fine line between efficacy and toxicity. Clifford A. Hudis, MD, Chief, Breast Cancer Medicine Service at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, tackled this difficult clinical discussion in an interview with ONCOLOGY.

Nationally recognized breast cancer specialist Eric P. Winer, MD, presented two lectures at this year’s MBCC, “Strategies for Patients with Refractory HER2-Positive Breast Cancer,” and “Addressing Menopausal Symptoms and Fertility in Breast Cancer.” In an exclusive interview with ONCOLOGY, Dr. Winer explained how hormonal therapy can best be used in the difficult stetting of metastatic disease.

Ron Piana, Executive Editor for Special Projects with the journal ONCOLOGY, spoke with nationally regarded breast cancer specialist, Dr. Debu Tripathy, co-course director for the 27th Annual Miami Breast Cancer Conference.

Less than 1% of women took tamoxifen in the years 2000 and 2005 as a preventive measure, according to results of a recent survey.

None; investigational agents olaparib (AZD2281) and BSI-201 are in phase I and II clinical trials; other PARP inhibitors under investigation include AGO 14699 (Pfizer), ABT-888 (Enzo), and MK4827 (Merck).

The RANK ligand inhibitor was better tolerated and more convenient for patients with skeletal metastasis.

Large clinical trials have demonstrated that preoperative therapy for primary operable breast cancer improves breast-conservation rates, with equivalent disease-free (DFS) and overall survival (OS) compared to adjuvant therapy.[1] Connolly and Stearns provide an excellent review of additional benefits of neoadjuvant therapy and emphasize the importance of a multidisciplinary approach to treating patients in this setting.

While the administration of neoadjuvant chemotherapy is recommended for women with locally advanced breast cancer, its use in the primary operable setting has been debated and is the focus of this review.

Agendia, a leader in molecular cancer diagnostics, recently announced that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) cleared its MammaPrint breast cancer recurrence test for all ages. MammaPrint is the only FDA-cleared breast cancer recurrence test available to patients and physicians. Over the past 3 years, the FDA has issued four clearances for MammaPrint, covering all aspects of this service.

Investigators from the Breast International Group 1-98 study and the Intergroup Exemestane Study updated their respective trial results at SABCS 2009.

Multi-targeted TKI inhibitors are gaining traction in the treatment of advanced breast cancer, although results from four different trials do show varying degrees of efficacy.

A 30-year study of nearly 20,000 Danish women made a defensible connection between obesity and poor prognosis after breast cancer diagnosis and treatment.