'Fish on a chip' technology may speed cancer diagnosis

A faster, cheaper cancer diagnosis technology called a "fish on a chip" has been developed in Alberta.

The diagnostic chip miniaturizes and automates testing for chromosome mutations from many types of cancer, shortening the wait for diagnosis.

The FISH technology, short for fluorescent in situ hybridization, attaches coloured dyes to detect mutations such as breaks and reattachments in chromosomes.

The test maps the DNA in a blood or bone marrow sample to tell doctors what type of cancer they're dealing with, and provides information on how to treat it.

Patients don't have to suffer therapies that won't do them any good, and they don't have to endure the side-effects, said Linda Pilarski, an oncology professor at the University of Alberta who holds a Canada Research Chair in biomedical nanotechnology.

The new test could cost as little as $10, one-tenth the cost of conventional diagnostic tests, the researchers said.

While conventional tests take several days and highly skilled technologists, the fish on a chip version can be done in less than a day, including in rural areas where people would not have to travel to major centres to access it, Pilarski said.

Researchers have tested the technology on hundreds of cancer patients, including cancer survivor Willie Gruber. When Gruber's doctor suspected cancer during a physical exam, it took two weeks before he got the results.

"When you go in and you are told you may have cancer, you then have this several weeks of waiting," Gruber recalled of the stressful time. "It turns your life upside down, it puts things on hold."

The test needs to undergo more trials and gain approval from Health Canada before it could be rolled out in five years at the earliest.

For now, it is used as part of research and clinical trials, Pilarski said.

The research will be published this month in the journal Nanobiotechnology, and will be presented at the 11th International Myeloma Workshop, a medical conference being held in Greece at the end of June.

source : news.yahoo.com

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Herceptin Still Improves Odds Against Breast Cancer

After almost a decade of use, Herceptin continues to prolong the lives of women with a particularly aggressive form of breast cancer.

An analysis of two clinical trials showed that breast cancer patients receiving Herceptin along with chemotherapy have better survival and fewer recurrences after four years, compared to patients receiving chemotherapy alone. Previous data had shown improved outcomes only over two years.

"When we presented the original data in 2005, people wondered if the benefits were going to be maintained or were we just seeing acute, short-term benefits in this aggressive type of breast cancer," said Dr. Edith Perez, director of the Multidisciplinary Breast Clinic at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Fla., and the primary investigator of one of the trials. "The data now states that the benefit is completely maintained over time, maybe even increasing, without any increase in toxicity."

Perez presented the results of the joint analysis Monday at the American Society of Clinical Oncology's annual meeting in Chicago.

"The prediction that women would continue to do well appears to be accurate," added Dr. Len Lichtenfeld, deputy chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society. "This seems to confirm another substantial advance in treating cancer with molecular therapies. There's a lasting benefit, and that's important."

"This is great news for women," added Dr. Ramona Swaby, a medical oncologist specializing in breast cancer at Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia. "It's reassuring because we're so used to using Herceptin in a non-curative [ie preventive] setting."

Herceptin, which was approved to treat advanced breast cancer in 1998, is effective in the 20 percent to 25 percent of breast cancer cases that test positive for the HER2/neu receptor.

This paper was an analysis of two trials that had already shown a benefit with Herceptin. Participants in both trials underwent chemotherapy and were then randomized to receive Herceptin or a placebo.

After four years, 85.9 percent of the women in the Herceptin arm remain cancer-free and 92.6 percent are still alive, compared with 73.1 percent and 89.4 percent respectively, of those not treated with Herceptin.

Overall, 397 patients in the chemotherapy-alone group have developed a recurrence or died, compared to only 222 in the Herceptin group.

The addition of Herceptin to therapy decreased the chances of the cancer returning by 52 percent and the risk of death by 35 percent.

"The benefit is not short-term, it's long-lasting, which impacts many, many lives," Perez said.

The first joint analysis of these two trials appeared in the Oct. 20., 2005, issue of the New England Journal of Medicine and found that disease-free survival and overall survival were improved by 52 percent and 33 percent, respectively, after two years of follow-up.

The good news follows another longer-term study of the drug, released Sunday at the cancer meeting, which showed that the risk of heart failure in women taking Herceptin was not any higher at five years than it was at two years.

Among the other findings of the joint analysis: the highest risk of relapse for HER2-positive breast cancer occurs within the first two years, although additional recurrences occur later and the cancer is more likely to recur in patients who initially had larger tumors, who had lymph node involvement or whose tumors were also estrogen-receptor-negative.

"The peak of relapse is still within the first three years, but relapses still continue occurring," Perez said.

Interestingly, Perez also found that estrogen-receptor-positive tumors experienced a 15 percent improvement, even though many physicians had believed these tumors did not respond well to Herceptin.

"That's going to be news to a lot of people," Perez said.

source : news.yahoo.com

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Race a factor in breast cancer survival

In the fight against breast cancer, the chances of survival may depend in part on the color of a woman's skin.

New research of 15,000 women with advanced breast cancer. From 1988 to 2003 - survival rates among African Americans held steady at around 17 months compared to an increase from 20 to 27 months among white women.

According to the American Cancer Society, in 2007, more than 180,000 women will be diagnosed whith breast cancer and more than 40,000 will die from the disease.

Researchers at the M.D Anderson Cancer Center did not look at reasons behind the disparity.

"The one year survival back in the late 1980's was only about three percent different between white and black patients, by the time you get to the early 2000's it's a nine-percent difference," Oncologist Sharon Giordano said. "I don't think the biology of the disease would change over time like that. I think it's more likely due to socioeconomic factors or access to care."

Along with access to care, recent studies have suggested that African American women are more likely to develop more aggressive forms of breast cancers that don't respond as well to conventional therapies.

Researchers plan to study the reasons for the growing gap in survival rates - but in the meantime many communities are working to change - training church leaders like Pastor Harry Burns.

"My role um before was to help develop care teams for people that were chronically ill," Burns, who now preaches the message of prevention, said. "Annual physical check ups, examinations. Also changing our lifestyles, healthy eating."


About the study:
The researchers analyzed the National Cancer Institute's Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) database to identify 15,438 women who newly diagnosed with advanced breast cancer between 1988and 2003.

Adjustment factors included: patient age; estrogen receptor status; and tumor grade.

Patients were divided into three subgroups: those diagnosed from1988 to 993; from 1994 to 1998; and from 1999 to 2003. Overall, the median age of the women was 62 years old; median breast cancer-specific survival was 20 months, 21 months and 25 months respectively.

In those diagnosed with advanced breast cancer between 1988 and 1993, the median survival was 20 months in white women, compared to 17 months for black women, a one-year survival difference of 2.8 percent. In the women diagnosed between 1994 and 1998, a white breast cancer patient's median survival was 22 months versus 16 months, in black patients, a one-year survival difference of 6.8 percent. In those diagnosed from 1999 to 2003, the median survival for white women was 27 months compared to 17 months for black women, a one-year survivor difference of 8.8 percent.

The researchers hope that health policy makers take notice of the growing disparity and implement steps to make all breast cancer treatments more accessible. Giordano and Dawood also intend to expand upon their research and determine the causation of these racial disparities.

source:www.kare11.com

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Less radiation OK for breast cancer

Women with early-stage breast tumors can undergo a shorter course of radiation without a greater risk that their cancer will come back years later, the largest study to test this suggests.

The results are good news for women who must quit work or travel far to receive the five-week, daily treatments usually given.

"This is very disruptive to your life. If we could achieve the same outcome with less frequent visits to the radiation center ... this would be a tremendous benefit," said Dr. Julie Gralow of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle.
Gralow was not involved in the study, but reviewed and discussed it at a meeting Sunday of the American Society of Clinical Oncology.

Most of the 180,000 breast cancers diagnosed each year in the United States are the type this study addressed — still confined to the breast. The usual treatment is surgery plus chemotherapy or hormone therapy, followed by radiation to prevent a recurrence.

Dr. John Dewar of the University of Dundee in Scotland led a two-part study of nearly 4,500 women in the United Kingdom to test shorter courses of radiation.

Women received either the standard 50 Grays, the unit used in measuring radiation, in 25 treatments spread over five weeks, or roughly 40 Grays given in 13 treatments every other day for five weeks or in 15 treatments over three weeks.

Five years later, cancer recurrence rates were low for all groups, ranging from 2 to 5 percent. So few recurrences occurred — 158 — that doctors believe the treatments are equivalent but cannot say so with certainty.

Many will want to see what happens to these women with longer follow up, said Dr. Gary Freedman of Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia. He is testing a shorter course, too, and noted that in the United States, most doctors give a total of 60 to 64 Grays — the standard 50 plus a boost dose directly to the tumor area.

Lisa Warren is a patient who received the shorter course in Freedman's study. Warren, 46, lives nearly an hour's drive from the cancer center and was eager when the short course was offered.

"I was all for that," she said. "Seven weeks is a long time to be running back and forth. Mentally and physically, it's very draining."

Gralow, whose Seattle clinic sees many Alaskan women who must travel great distances for treatment, said she would consider the shorter treatment in such situations.

"This is very exciting news for our patients," because many women around the country live in rural areas or are elderly and must have someone drive them to get care, she said.

Shorter treatment had another benefit: less swelling or shrinkage of breast tissue and less enlargement of blood vessels as a side effect of radiation.

Other news at the conference:

_The median survival of black women with advanced breast cancer lags that of their white counterparts — 17 months versus 27 months — an analysis of federal statistics from 1999 to 2003 finds. It is unclear, however, whether the gap is due to true racial differences or to variations in treatment, which the statistics do not reflect.

_MRI or magnetic resonance imaging scans detect 10 percent to 20 percent more pre-invasive breast cancers than standard mammograms, especially the type most likely to spread, a study of 6,000 women in Germany found. However, no information was available on how many false alarms MRIs gave - the biggest factor limiting their use now, besides higher cost and limited availability.

_Many survivors of childhood cancers are not getting recommended follow up tests to watch for second cancers later in life, a survey of 8,500 cancer survivors found. Only one-fourth at risk of developing heart problems because of their cancer treatment were tested for this every year or two as doctors recommend, and only half of women at risk of breast cancer got annual mammograms.

About 10 million Americans are cancer survivors, so the study "tells us both about our success and some of our challenges for the future," said Dr. Nancy Davidson, a cancer specialist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and president-elect of the oncology society.

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Advances bring better diagnosis and treatment for breast cancer

Scientific advances have enabled better diagnosis and treatment for women with breast cancer, according to studies presented at the world's premier conference on cancer.

"We've made tremendous progress in detecting and treating many cancers unique to women," Julie Gralow, assistant professor of oncology at the University of Washington, said on Sunday.

"The studies discussed today bring us even closer to the goal of getting the best possible results with the fewest side effects," Gralow said as she introduced a group of studies at the annual conference of the American Society of Clinical Oncology in Chicago.
Despite progress on the research front, the disease still kills half a million women around the world each year.

Research unveiled at the conference showed magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, proved more effective in detecting tumors for breast cancer patients than the traditional test using mammograms.

The MRI scan found malignant tumors that mammograms had missed, according to results of a study conducted in Germany involving 6,000 women.

The MRI scan spotted 40 percent of tumors that were undetected by mammograms, and 78 percent of those were of a highly aggressive category.

Mammogram x-rays detect an accumulation of calcium around tumors while the MRI scans uncover an abnormal growth of blood vessels.

While MRI tests appeared to be more effective, "more research is necessary before we can make specific recommendations about the use of breast MRI for DCIS (preinvasive breast cancer) in clinical practice," said Christian Kuhl, professor of radiology at the University of Bonn and the lead author of the study.

New research also showed clinical trials for the medicine Tykerb, developed by the British firm GlaxoSmithKline, had produced encouraging results in a group of 241 patients whose breast cancer had spread to the brain.

After a treatment of six months with the Tykerb pill, seven percent of patients had their tumors reduced by at least 50 percent while 20 percent saw their tumors reduced by less than 50 percent.

Another study presented at the conference showed that Herceptin, a treatment that blocks the production of the HER2 protein which in excess can cause tumors to return, does not enhance the long-term danger of heart attacks.

"While we need to continue monitoring patients closely for late cardiac effect, this is reassuring news for women taking this drug," said Priya Rastogi, assistant professor of medicine at the University of Pittsburgh.

Compared to other cancers, there has been marked progress in the fight against breast cancer, particularly because of targeted treatments.

But gains in survival rates, with a 2.3 percent reduction in deaths recorded in recent years, have not been shared equally in the United States among African-Americans and whites, said a new study published Sunday.

For women diagnosed between 1999 and 2003, whites survived for a median of 27 months compared to 17 months for black patients -- an eight percent difference, said the study by researchers at the University of Texas.

More than 180,510 Americans will be diagnosed with breast cancer in 2008 and about 41,000 will die from the disease, according to the American Cancer Society.

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Blacks don't share in breast cancer progress

Black women with advanced breast cancer are faring no better now than they were two decades ago despite improved survival by white women -- and the gap appears to be widening, U.S. researchers said Sunday.

Dr. Sharon Giordano of the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center studied breast cancer survival in women between 1988 and 2003.

She found that, in general, women with advanced breast cancer were living longer.

"But when we looked separately by race, we found the improvement seemed be to limited to white patients and the survival for black patients had remained flat over time," Giordano said in an interview.
"What is really concerning to me is that the difference is getting bigger."

She and colleagues identified 15,438 patients from a National Cancer Institute database. They had a median age of 62 and were diagnosed with advanced breast cancer between 1988 and 2003.

They divided the groups into three time periods.

From 1988 to 1993, breast cancer survival was fairly close between whites and blacks, with a median survival of 20 months for white women versus 17 months in blacks.

Between 1994 and 1998, the median survival was 22 months for white women and 16 months for black women.

From 1999 to 2003, the median survival rate for white women jumped to 27 months, versus a stagnant 17 months for black women.

"The study didn't look at any of the factors that could be causing it," said Giordano, who presented her study at the scientific meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology in Chicago.

BIOLOGICAL DIFFERENCES?

Some researchers have suggested that biological differences may make breast cancer more deadly for black women.

A study last fall of 2,000 women by Dr. Wendy Woodward, also of the University of Texas, compared the records of black, Hispanic and white breast-cancer patients.

They found the black women overall had more aggressive tumors and were more likely to die than the Hispanic and white women.

But Giordano was skeptical of the link to biological differences.

"I don't really think it is any inherent difference in biology of people by race. It is more likely related to socioeconomic factors," Giordano said.

"I think you could also hypothesize it could be related to access to care -- potentially differences in access to new treatment," she added.

Giordano said the next step is to determine the reasons for this increasing disparity. "Once you know the reasons, you can intervene to correct the problem."

Dr. Len Lichtenfeld, deputy chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society, cautioned that biological differences should not be used to dismiss other contributing factors.

"My personal view is the majority of this (disparity) is related to access ... to the ability to get adequate care in a timely fashion, and perhaps some of it is related to biology," he said.

"We in this country need to do a better job of making sure that all women have better access to mammography and better access to care."

Breast cancer kills 500,000 people a year globally, according to the World Health Organization, and 1.2 million men and women are diagnosed with it annually.

It is the second most common cause of cancer death in U.S. women after lung cancer, and the No. 1 killer of women aged 45 to 55. It kills 40,000 men and women a year in the United States.

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Vitamin D, Calcium Might Lower Breast Cancer Risk

Premenopausal women who get a lot of vitamin D and calcium may cut their risk of breast cancer by almost a third, Harvard Medical School researchers report.

"Adequate intakes of calcium and vitamin D are necessary for women in keeping up their health, and additionally, these two nutrients may help prevent breast cancer development, especially among premenopausal women," said lead author Jennifer Lin, an assistant professor of medicine.

Her team's report appears in the May 28 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine.
In the study, Lin's team collected data on more than 10,500 premenopausal and almost 21,000 postmenopausal women age 45 and older who were part of the Women's Health Study. The data included information on what they ate and the dietary supplements they took.

Over an average of 10 years, 276 premenopausal women and 743 postmenopausal women went on to develop breast cancer.

The researchers found that premenopausal women whose intake of vitamin D and calcium was high had about a 30 percent lower risk of developing breast cancer. However, they didn't find this association for postmenopausal women.

Animal studies have also found an association between calcium and vitamin D intake and breast cancer prevention, Lin's group noted.

"Calcium and vitamin D may confer protection against breast tumorigenesis," Lin said. "However, more studies are necessary to investigate the potential utility of these two nutrients in breast cancer development," she added.

One expert stressed that the evidence for a protective effect of vitamin D and calcium is still not clear.

"I really don't think that one can say from this study that the effect is only in premenopausal women, because there are a number of factors in the study that may have limited the ability to see the effect," said Victoria Stevens, an epidemiologist at the
American Cancer Society. "This is particularly true for vitamin D, because most vitamin D comes from exposure to sunlight, which they did not take into account."

At this point in time, a recommendation that women take vitamin D or calcium to decrease their breast cancer risk is not warranted, she said.

"I don't think we should go that far," Stevens said. "The society doesn't recommend the use of any vitamin supplements" to prevent breast cancer.

"I don't think this study says that we should change that," Stevens said. "At this point, the evidence doesn't support anything more than getting a good diet and maintaining good levels of physical activity," she said.

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Lumpectomy safe for younger breast cancer patients

Breast cancer tends to be more aggressive when it occurs in younger women, and doctors often advise radical surgery. Now, however, a study shows that breast-conserving treatment, commonly known as lumpectomy, is safe for women younger than 40.

Acceptable outcomes, "almost comparable to the rates observed among patients older than 40 years, can be obtained if high-quality surgery and radiotherapy are combined with chemotherapy," Dr. Adri C. Voogd from Maastricht University in the Netherlands told Reuters Health.

Voogd and colleagues evaluated the outcomes of 758 women 40 years of age or younger who underwent this course of treatment between 1988 and 2002.
Ninety-five women developed a local recurrence of breast cancer during follow-up, the researchers report in the medical journal Cancer, and an additional 17 women had recurrences diagnosed after the cancer was found to have spread to other sites in the body.

"Of the local recurrences that were identified in our study, the large majority occurred at or near the site of the primary tumor, and only 7% developed elsewhere in the breast," the researchers explain. "This suggests that, at least in young women, most local recurrences are not new primary tumors, but are more likely to be true recurrences, originating from residual tumor tissue."

The team calculates that local recurrence rates were 9% at 5 years and 18% after 10 years.

"With our findings, we hope to have taken away some of the fears and make breast conservation a more acceptable treatment option for young women with breast cancer," Voogd said.

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Gene Findings Boost Breast Cancer Research

Four new studies released Thursday are shedding new light on the genetics of breast cancer, especially for one of the best-known breast cancer genes, BRCA1.

"The more we can understand the underlying mechanism for BRCA1, the better shot we have at developing chemoprevention" for women who carry the DNA mutation, said one expert, Kathleen Malone, a cancer epidemiologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle.

She was not involved in the studies, which were all published in the May 25 issue of Science.
In one article, scientists who track how the body repairs its DNA (the "DNA damage response") when it is exposed to chemicals or other carcinogens say they've found a possible new breast cancer gene.

The new candidate gene is called Rap80, according to a partnership of scientists at the Abramson Family Cancer Research Institute, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston.

Rap80 is a protein that is crucial for BRCA1 to do its repair work properly, they found.

It has long been known that certain mutations in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 gene prevent it from doing normal repair work. This puts carriers of the gene defect at dramatically higher risk of breast and ovarian cancers.

Yet, mutations in these genes explain less than 50 percent of inherited cancers, the scientists from Penn and Dana-Farber said.

Rap80 deficits may help explain many other cancer cases, the scientists said. If BRCA1 is mutated, it can't bind to the RAP80 protein, the scientists found. If this DNA damage is not identified and fixed, the mutations can lead to malignancy.

Other researchers found that the list of proteins involved in the DNA damage response is much longer than believed.

"A lot more proteins are called into action than we ever guessed," said Stephen Elledge, the Gregor Mendel Professor of Genetics and of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and an author on two of the four papers.

"The list of proteins totals 700," Elledge said. "Before, we knew about 20 proteins." The discoveries, he said, "will give us a higher-resolution picture of what the BRCA1 gene is doing inside the cells."

"Cells constantly have a problem with DNA, with cells breaking down," explained Elledge. "Cells have a built in sensory network to find out if there is a problem. If you can't fix the problem, it could lead to mutation and cancer."

"The hope is that as we learn enough about BRCA1, we can figure out what it isn't doing and try to fix that," Elledge added. The list of proteins gives scientists a large database to hunt for other potential cancer genes.

Malone called the host of papers "an amazing convergence" of new findings from different laboratories.

With the identification of the role of Rap80, Malone agreed that "we could be talking about another breast cancer candidate gene."

In a Science perspective accompanying the papers, John H. J. Petrini, a researcher at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, noted that the new research "brings fundamental new information to the table, while at the same time reminding us that the more we know, the more complicated things get."

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N.L. health authority lacked quality controls: lawyer in breast cancer suit

A lawyer representing breast cancer patients behind a lawsuit against a Newfoundland health authority says a lack of quality controls, among other things, justifies the class action against the organization.

During a hearing today to certify the class action, Ches Crosbie said the Eastern Health authority failed to properly supervise and train staff, as well as inform patients in a timely manner of inaccurate breast cancer test results.

About 20 clients represented by Crosbie attended the first day of the three-day certification hearing in a St. John's courtroom.
The allegations in their statement of claim have not been proven in court.

The lawsuit was launched after it was discovered that more than 300 patients received the wrong results from their breast cancer tests from 1997 to 2005.

The provincial government has announced a judicial inquiry to determine how so many patients could have received the wrong results.

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MRI May Improve Breast Cancer Surgery

MRI scans may help guide the surgical treatment of newly diagnosed breast cancer patients, U.S. researchers report.

A team at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University in Chicago noted that newly diagnosed breast cancer patients are at risk of having another hidden tumor in the same or opposite breast. If these additional tumors are detected before surgery to remove the initially diagnosed tumor, then the plans for surgical management of a patient's breast cancer can be changed.

This study included 155 women who'd been diagnosed with breast cancer by mammogram, ultrasound or needle biopsy. The women were then evaluated by a surgeon who developed a surgical treatment plan. After this consultation, the women had an MRI on both breasts.
Those MRIs spotted a total of 124 additional aberrant areas in 73 of the women. If a follow-up biopsy showed these areas to be suspicious or malignant, the women went back to the surgeon for a re-evaluation of their surgical treatment plans.

Breast MRI resulted in altered surgical management of 36 (23.2 percent) of the 155 women, including 10 who had a mastectomy instead of a lumpectomy, 21 who had lumpectomies in which more tissue was removed than originally planned, and five who had surgery on both breasts.

"Additional malignancies are uncovered in one patient for every 10 who undergo MRI," the study authors wrote. "These data suggest that breast MRI may have a role in the staging evaluation of newly diagnosed breast cancers."

The study is published in the May issue of the journal Archives of Surgery.

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By Amy Norton Mon May 21, 9:36 AM ET

Women who use chemical relaxers to straighten their hair do not seem to be at increased risk of breast cancer, according to a new study.

There's no evidence that the major ingredients in hair relaxers -- such as lye and calcium hydroxide -- promote cancer. However, manufacturers need not list all of the ingredients they use in cosmetics (as some are considered trade secrets), and it's not clear whether some of these substances might be harmful.

Because many African-American women regularly use hair relaxers, often throughout their lives, it's important to know whether the products carry any long-term health risks, researchers say.span class="fullpost">
The new study found that among more than 48,000 African-American women, those who used hair relaxers most frequently were no more likely to develop breast cancer than those who rarely used the products.

"Our study provides reassurance that hair relaxers in general are not increasing the incidence of breast cancer," Dr. Lynn Rosenberg, the study's lead author, told Reuters Health.

That said, "nothing is 100-percent certain," noted Rosenberg, who is associate director of the Slone Epidemiology Center at Boston University, Massachusetts.

The study did not look at individual products, she explained, and it's still possible that some contain harmful substances. For now, however, there's "very little evidence" that women who use hair relaxers should worry that they're raising their odds of breast cancer, according to Rosenberg.

She and her colleagues report their findings in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention.

The researchers based their results on data from the Black Women's Health Study, which began following a large group of African American women from across the U.S. in 1995. Study participants completed questionnaires on their health and lifestyle habits every two years.

Of 48,167 women who reported on their hair relaxer use, 574 had developed breast cancer by 2003. Women who used hair relaxers most frequently -- seven or more times per year -- were no more likely to develop breast cancer than their peers who rarely or never used the products.

The same was true when the researchers compared non-users to women who'd used hair relaxers for 20 years or more.

Compared with white women, African-American women are more likely to develop breast cancer before the age of 45, for reasons that aren't completely clear. In this study, Rosenberg pointed out, there was no evidence that hair relaxers increased breast cancer risk in older or younger women.

SOURCE: Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, May 2007.

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Turia claims breast cancer screening racist

The Maori Party claims there is an element of racism in the breast cancer screening process.

Breast Screen Aotearoa has just released findings on what access woman have to cancer screening programmes.

Maori Party co-leader Tariana Turia is concerned about figures that show coverage for Maori woman is 20 percent behind the national average. She is demanding answers from the Health Minister, asking what will he do about such obvious discrimination.

Associate Health Minister Jim Anderton says rates of cervical cancer are actually falling at greater rates for Maori woman compared with non-Maori.

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Why alcohol boosts breast cancer risk

The author of the study referenced in the second paragraph points out that the original statement that "60 percent of breast cancer cases in women worldwide were attributable to alcohol consumption" is erroneous; rather, "breast cancer comprises 60% of alcohol-attributable cancers among women."

By Megan Rauscher

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A study in mice shows that moderate alcohol consumption stimulates the growth and progression of breast cancer by fueling the development of new blood vessels -- a process called "angiogenesis." It does this by boosting expression of a key growth factor known as vascular endothelial growth factor or VEGF.
Drinking alcohol -- even moderate amounts - is a well-established risk factor for breast cancer in women. A recent study found that breast cancer comprises 60 percent of alcohol-attributable cancers among women worldwide. But the mechanism(s) of alcohol-induced breast cancer are poorly understood.

Dr. Jian-Wei Gu and colleagues from the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson examined the effects of alcohol on tumor growth and progression of breast cancer in mice.

For 4 weeks, 6-week old female mice consumed regular drinking water or water containing 1 percent alcohol, which is equivalent to about 2 to 4 drinks in humans. In week 2, the animals were inoculated with mouse breast cancer cells.

"We found after about 4 weeks that breast tumor size almost doubled in mice that drank alcohol compared to control mice given plain water," Gu noted in a telephone interview with Reuters Health. Moderate alcohol intake also caused a noteworthy increase in tumor blood vessels compared with no alcohol intake.

The team also observed a significant increase in VEGF levels in the tumors of mice consuming alcohol compared to the tumors of control mice.

"VEGF can promote the formation of new blood vessels," Gu said. "This suggests that alcohol can induce tumor angiogenesis."

He presented the research at the American Physiological Society's annual meeting, part of Experimental Biology 2007, underway in Washington DC.

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Health Tip: Risk Factors for Breast Cancer

Although many risk factors for breast cancer cannot be controlled -- such as genetic mutations, age, and family history -- others are associated with lifestyle choices.

The American Cancer Society offers this list of lifestyle factors that may increase a woman's risk of breast cancer:

• Having no children.


• Using oral contraceptives, depending on at what age and for how long they were taken.


• Using post-menopausal hormone replacement therapy (HRT).


• Abuse of alcohol.


• Being obese and eating a high-fat diet.


• Getting inadequate physical activity.

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New Study Stresses Mammogram's Importance in Breast Cancer Decline

The decline in U.S. breast cancer cases is caused not only by fewer women using hormone replacement therapy but also by the use of mammography screening, new research suggests.

"Two distinct patterns are observed in breast cancer trends," wrote Dr. Ahmedin Jemal, strategic director for cancer surveillance for the
American Cancer Society, in a report published in the May 3 online edition of the journal Breast Cancer Research.
After colleagues presented an abstract at a breast cancer symposium that attributed the 7 percent decline in U.S. breast cancer cases in the years 2002 to 2003 to the reduced use of hormone replacement therapy, Jemal's team decided to look at an older data base.

The researchers who linked the decline to reduced hormone use looked at a large data base from 2002 and 2003 called SEER (Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results). In 2002, a large federally funded trial -- part of the Women's Health Initiative -- was halted when evidence emerged of an increased risk of heart disease and breast cancer due to hormone therapy.

After that, women in large numbers went off their hormone replacement regimens.

But Jemal's team looked at older SEER data bases, from 1975 to 2003. The researchers looked at breast cancer incidence rates by tumor size, tumor stage, and whether the tumor was estrogen-receptor positive or negative among women who were age 40 or older in the years studied.

They found that the decline in breast cancer cases also dropped prior to the 2002-2003 SEER data, although the decrease was less dramatic -- about 5 percent between 1999 and 2000 there was a 5 percent drop, according to Jemal.

"The point is breast cancer started to decrease before 2002," Jemal said. And screening mammograms were the reason, he added.

The decline in breast cancer rates directly attributed to mammography, he said, has now leveled off.

"The message for women over 40 is still, they should get a mammogram every year so the tumor [if there is one] can be detected," Jemal said.

The new study is "a more nuanced analysis," said Roshan Bastani, professor and associate dean for research at the University of California, Los Angeles, and associate director for cancer prevention and control at the university's Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center. "It shows there were declines in breast cancer that started before the recent declines."

While from a public health perspective a plateau may have been reached when it comes to the benefits of screening mammography, Bastani added, it's still crucial for women over age 40 to keep their mammogram appointments. "About 75 percent of [U.S.] women are getting screened. That has not changed since 1999," she said.

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Herceptin gets European OK for breast cancer

Herceptin has been approved in Europe for the treatment of advanced breast cancer in combination with hormonal therapy, Swiss drugmaker Roche Holding AG announced Thursday.

Herceptin was approved for the treatment of postmenopausal patients with HER2 and hormone receptor positive metastatic breast cancer, Roche said in a statement.

Herceptin, given by injection, is an antibody-based drug designed to target tumor cells and spare normal cells, unlike chemotherapy, which is toxic throughout the body.
The approval is based on data from an international late stage clinical trial, which showed the addition of Herceptin to hormonal therapy doubled the median progression-free survival time.

Herceptin is already approved in Europe for the treatment of early and metastatic, or advanced, HER2-positive breast cancer.

The new approval means its use can be extended, in combination with hormonal therapy for advanced breast cancer.

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Breast Cancer Patients Urged To Exercise

Women looking to boost their odds of beating breast cancer may want to add exercise to their arsenal. NewsCenter 5's Kelley Tuthill reported Friday that several studies suggest walking at a moderate pace for 30 minutes a day or more may increase survival rates for some people. Locally, several programs are helping women safely incorporate exercise into their lives.

Marie Kelley finished treatment for breast cancer in October. Since then, she has been struggling to resume her normal life.

"I was fatigued. I really couldn't do anything," she said.
Her oncologist referred her to Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital's Restore Program.

"At Restore, we focus on physical healing. Physical healing tag teams emotional healing. The better you feel physically the better emotionally," said Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital Dr. Julie Silver.

Silver, a breast cancer survivor, said that there's another reason why exercise is essential.

"The idea that exercise can help prevent cancer recurrence is one the medical community is beginning to embrace for certain cancers," she said.

Elissa Lyman, of Wellesley, said that she had trouble getting motivated until her doctor delivered some tough news.

"My oncologist kept saying, 'You've got to exercise.' I never did it until my bone density showed a marked decline," said Lyman.

Desperate to strengthen her bones, she sought out a personal trainer.

"We developed a program specifically for her needs and fitness level -- a lot of strength-training exercises, a lot of walking. Those are the two things I do to help her increase bone density," Fitness Together trainer Chad Asnes said.

Organized programs and gyms are certainly one option. But experts said you don't necessarily need a lot of equipment to start getting into shape.

"For people in treatment, I say get a pedometer. Start walking. When you're done with treatment, you want to aim for 10k steps per day," Silver said.

If that seems like a lot, do the best you can and try to add 500 steps each week.

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Machine to speed breast cancer diagnosis

A new machine that will speed up the diagnosis process for women with early breast cancer is being trialled in Brisbane in a world-first study.

The Princess Alexandra Hospital bought a semi-automated tissue microarrayer with the help of a $94,000 grant from the Golden Casket Foundation.
The machine allows doctors to quickly determine if women with early stage breast cancers need to proceed directly to having their lymph nodes removed, saving them from two invasive procedures.

The treatment will affect about 700 of the 2,220 women diagnosed with breast cancer in Queensland each year and spare them from having an additional operation that would have meant at least four extra days in hospital.

The machine is also expected to deliver savings of more than $2 million to the hospital and 3,000 bed days a year.

Princess Alexandra pathology department director Dr Glenn Francis said the machine enabled high-throughput screening of a large number of tissues, increasing accuracy of diagnosis by decreasing the risk of human error.

"The manual tissue microarrayers involve a lot of repetitive steps to receive a result," he said.

"By using the semi-automated microarrayer, 150 tumours will be able to be assessed on each slide."

Dr Francis said the arrayer would eventually be used for all cancer types, including prostate cancer, lymphoma and head and neck cancer.

The machine will be trialled at Princess Alexandra Hospital before being rolled out across Australia within three to five years.

Queensland Acting Premier Anna Bligh said the machine delivered significant benefits to the state's public health system.

"If we can save those operations and procedures and save time in hospital, then we can also save ... bed time in our hospital system," she said.

The Golden Casket Foundation has provided more than $2 million in funds for health and medical research in Queensland.

The foundation is funded by the interest earned on unclaimed first division lottery prizes, including a yet-to-be claimed $23.2 million Powerball prize from 2004.

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Tamoxifen Protects Certain Women at High Risk for Breast Cancer

Tamoxifen helps prevent breast cancer in women at high risk for the disease who have also had their ovaries removed as part of a hysterectomy, researchers report.

The new study, "reaffirms that tamoxifen is still a tremendous drug for prevention of breast cancer in women who are at a high risk for development of the disease," said Dr. Jay Brooks, chairman of hematology/oncology at Ochsner Health System in Baton Rouge, La. He was not involved in the trial.
The study -- an extended follow-up of the Italian Randomized Tamoxifen Trial -- is published in the May 2 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

The initial findings of the trial found tamoxifen offered no reduction in women's risk for breast cancer. Nor had some other European trials, some of which looked at women with different risk profiles.

But an earlier and much larger study, the National Surgical Adjuvant Breast and Bowel Project (NSABP) Breast Cancer Prevention Trial, had shown that tamoxifen could cut the risk of estrogen-receptor-positive breast cancer -- tumors that grow in the presence of estrogen. In fact, that trial was halted early, because the risk reduction in invasive breast cancer was so striking.

Here, the authors presented 11-year follow-up data on more than 5,400 women who had undergone a hysterectomy (including having both ovaries removed) and who had been randomly assigned to receive tamoxifen or a placebo for five years.

Ovaries make estrogen, so removing them ensures that no extra estrogen -- which can fuel some breast cancer tumors -- is being produced.

For women at low risk for breast cancer, disease rates were similar whether or not they took tamoxifen, the researchers reported.

The situation was different for higher-risk women. In that case, women taking tamoxifen had lower rates of hormone-receptor-positive breast cancer than those taking a placebo: 1.5 per 1,000 women-years in the tamoxifen group versus 6.26 per 1,000 women-years in the placebo group.

There was also a greater reduction in risk for tumors that were both progesterone- and estrogen-receptor positive, than for tumors which were estrogen-receptor positive and progesterone-receptor negative.

Women in the tamoxifen group also had more side effects, including hot flashes and heart problems. These are noted side effects of the drug. A woman's cardiac risk needs to be assessed before she is started on tamoxifen, the authors stated.

The new study "reaffirms the pioneering work that the NSABP did back in the '90s," Brooks said. "Tamoxifen is still an excellent drug for prevention of breast cancer and is underutilized," he added.

Another expert said newer drugs can help, too.

"Tamoxifen does decrease the risk of invasive breast cancer," said Dr. Alison Estabrook, chief of breast surgery at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital in New York City. "We're hoping that the new aromatase inhibitors which are being tried now for prevention will reduce the risk of breast cancer, which they should."

Aromatase inhibitors, which lower the amount of estrogen in the body by blocking a key enzyme, have far fewer side effects than tamoxifen. Another drug, raloxifene, also has fewer side effects but does not prevent noninvasive breast cancer, whereas tamoxifen works on both, Brooks said.

In other findings, reported in the same issue of the journal, a team at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston used a three-drug combo to block the growth of aggressive breast cancers in mice.

The team added two cancer drugs, gefitinib and pertuzumab, to Herceptin (trastuzumab) to help slow the growth of tumors with higher levels of a protein called HER-2. Herceptin was designed to block HER-2 but proved much more effective with the addition of the other two agents, the researchers found.

A clinical trial will begin soon, said co-investigator Dr. Kent Osborne, director of the Breast Center and Dan L. Duncan Cancer Center at Baylor. "We are very excited to see if our laboratory results can be translated to patients with the more aggressive types of breast cancer," he said in a statement.

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