Breast Cancer Resource Center News

• USPSTF Issues New Breast Cancer Screening Guidelines The US Preventive Services Task Force recommends against routine mammography screening for women before age 50 years and suggests that screening end at age 74 years.
  Medscape Medical News, November 2009
• Anthracycline Cardiotoxicity Appears Limited in Breast Cancer in the Short Term No significant incidence of short-term cardiac toxicity was observed in breast cancer patients on dose-dense anthracycline regimens, but longer term follow-up is needed.
  Medscape Medical News, November 2009
• Mammographic Breast Density May Help Predict Risk for Local Breast Cancer Recurrence A study shows that mammographic breast density is an important risk factor for local breast cancer recurrence among women not receiving breast irradiation.
  Medscape Medical News, November 2009
• Breast Cancer Changes When it Spreads to Nodes in Nearly Half of Patients Differences in receptor expression in nodal tumor tissue and in primary breast cancer might be a reason for the failure of adjuvant therapy.
  Medscape Medical News, November 2009
• Chronic Pain May Persist for Years After Breast Cancer Surgery Nearly half of all breast cancer patients reported having persistent pain following surgery, even after several years, according to a large Danish study.
  Medscape Medical News, November 2009
• Landmark Partial Breast Irradiation Trial Needs "Unsuitable" Patients The description of certain breast cancer patients as "unsuitable" for partial irradiation in a recent consensus statement might be hampering enrollment to a landmark trial.
  Medscape Medical News, November 2009
• Capecitabine Added to Standard Chemotherapy Reduces Breast Cancer Recurrence Adding capecitabine to a regimen containing a taxane and an anthracycline reduced the risk for disease recurrence in women with early breast cancer.
  Medscape Medical News, November 2009
• Immediate Postmastectomy Reconstruction Tied to Better Breast Cancer Survival Immediate reconstruction following mastectomy is associated with a 26% reduction in breast cancer-specific mortality, according to a report in the October 15th issue of Cancer.
  Reuters Health Information, November 2009
• Breast MRI Best for Finding Mammographically Occult Cancers MRI of the breast has the greatest potential, compared with digital mammography or whole-breast ultrasound, for detecting cancers missed by film screen mammogram, study findings indicate.
  Reuters Health Information, November 2009
• Novel Automated IHC Platforms Have 20-Minute Run Time A new automated immunohistochemical (IHC) assay for detecting estrogen-receptor status in breast cancer biopsy tissue samples shortens run time to about 20 minutes with no loss of sensitivity.
  Medscape Medical News, November 2009
• RT-PCR Sentinel Lymph Node Assay Comparable to Cytology for Detection of Breast Cancer Real-time reverse-transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) testing of sentinel lymph nodes during surgery compares well with intraoperative cytology in detecting breast cancer metastases.
  Medscape Medical News, November 2009
• HER2 Status Predicts Recurrence of Small Breast Cancers In women treated for small (1 cm or less), node-negative breast cancers, HER2 positivity is strongly linked to recurrence and poorer disease-free survival, according to the results of two studies reported in the November 2nd online issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology.
  Reuters Health Information, November 2009
• Repeat FISH Testing of Breast Tissue Not Cost-Effective for Her-2/neu Determination Universal fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) testing of breast tissue does not identify breast cancers better than immunohistochemistry testing, but does increase costs.
  Medscape Medical News, November 2009
• In Atypical Ductal Hyperplasia, Absence of Cytokeratin 5 Expression Is Ominous Cytokeratin 5 (CK5) expression in breast tissue indicates ductal carcinoma in situ, even if the patient presents with atypical ductal hyperplasia; the presence of CK5 is a good prognosticator.
  Medscape Medical News, November 2009
• Nulliparity, Late Age at First Childbirth Linked to Aggressive Breast Cancer Nulliparity and late-life first childbirth are associated with more aggressive breast cancer, according to Swedish researchers.
  Reuters Health Information, October 2009
• For DCIS, Outcomes With Excision Alone Acceptable at 5 Years A new study begs the question of whether or not local surgery alone is acceptable as a treatment option for women with ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS).
  Medscape Medical News, October 2009
• BRCA1 Associated With Depletion of Oocyte Reserve, Explaining Infertility Researchers have identified BCRA1 mutations that are associated with diminished oocyte reserves, which could explain the low fertility rates in these women.
  Medscape Medical News, October 2009
• "Rethink" of Cancer Screening Triggers Comments and Controversy A new essay about the need to rethink prostate and breast cancer screening has stirred up comments and controversies about how the harms and benefits of screening are presented.
  Medscape Medical News, October 2009
• ROCK Has Potential as New Therapeutic Target in Breast Cancer Preliminary research shows that inhibiting ROCK, a protein kinase, in the earliest stages of breast cancer might be effective in preventing distant metastasis.
  Medscape Medical News, October 2009
• Mastectomy Not Overused for Breast Cancer Treatment, Study Finds Mastectomy is not being overused in women with breast cancer, as is commonly thought. A new study found that about 75% of patients surveyed received breast-conserving surgery as initial treatment.
  Medscape Medical News, October 2009