Researchers continue to test the mettle of breakthrough breast cancer drugs, three decades after tamoxifen changed the medical landscape by drastically reducing the risk of recurrences in women with estrogen receptor-positive tumors.
Encouraging findings on several different drugs were presented Thursday at the CTRC-AACR San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium in Texas.
Ingrid Eikineas, of South Hingham, Mass., was only 35 years old when doctors told her last year that she had breast cancer. The disease had already spread to her bones and liver. It was that aggressive.
“The message was: start talking to your kids about not being around,” she said.
But Ingrid had other ideas. She began extensive treatment, including radiation and chemotherapy. After a year of treatment, amazingly, she has no signs of cancer.
Caffeine is almost certainly the country’s most popular drug, with American adults consuming more than 300 milligrams of it every day. Caffeine is a natural component of chocolate, coffee and tea and is used in most colas and energy drinks. It is also found in diet pills and some over-the-counter pain relievers and medicines. Over the past 30 years, there have been more than 19,000 studies on caffeine and coffee in an attempt to determine its exact effects on the human body. While caffeine is known to have some negative effects such as increasing anxiety, stress, food cravings and inhibiting sleep, increasing the overall risk of breast cancer isn’t one of them, according to a recent study.
Regular use of common painkillers such as aspirin and ibuprofen reduces the risk of breast cancer, according to an international study.
The research, which looked at information from 2.7 million women, was published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
Aspirin cut the risk by 13%, while ibuprofen lowered it by a fifth.
However, experts warned long-term use of painkillers can have serious side-effects.
Tamoxifen, the drug used for more than 30 years to treat breast cancer, reduces the risk of osteoporosis-related fractures, a new study shows.
“The effects are almost instantaneous,” said study author Dr. Andrew Cooke, head of radiation oncology at CancerCare Manitoba in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.
However, he added, “The fracture risk goes right back up once you stop it. The good news is, it reduces fracture risk when you are on it. Once you stop, you are not protected.”
Thersha Cowley was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2005. By the following year she had gone through chemotherapy and reconstructive surgery.
“I’m a survivor,” she said.
She had no hair when she attended her first stride against breast cancer. On Sunday, Cowley showed up to SouthWood Town Center with her husband, three children, uncle and aunt and a full head of hair to complete the Sixth Annual American Cancer Society’s Making Strides Against Breast Cancer 5K Walk.
Breast cancer survivors who suffer from hot flashes can reduce these attacks significantly with hypnosis, a new study finds.
Hot flashes are a problem for many women who survive breast cancer. Not only do they cause discomfort, but they interrupt sleep, cause anxiety and affect a woman’s quality of life.
“This is a very encouraging study of hypnosis as a treatment for hot flashes in breast cancer survivors,” said Dr. Ted Gansler, director of Medical Content at the American Cancer Society, who was not involved in the study. “This is an important topic because of the high prevalence of these symptoms in breast cancer survivors, and because few other treatment options are both safe and effective for this population,” he added.
There have been some other studies of hypnosis and cancer that indicate that the treatment is useful, but currently underutilized, Gansler noted.
The results of a recent study showed that a three-week course of accelerated hypofractionated whole breast irradiation produced results similar to those found with five weeks of standard breast irradiation in patients who have undergone lumpectomy.
At the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology 50th Annual Meeting, Timothy Whelan, MD, a radiation oncologist with the Juravinski Cancer Centre in Hamilton, Ontario, updated results first released in 2002.
Researchers at several sites in Ontario randomly assigned 1,234 women with invasive breast cancer to either 42.5 Gy in 16 fractions over 22 days (arm A; n=622) or the standard 50 Gy in 25 fractions over 35 days (arm B; n=612).
WEDNESDAY, Sept. 24 (HealthDay News) — Young women diagnosed with a common form of early-stage breast cancer called ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) are no more likely to have recurrences than older women with the disease, a new study finds.
The presumption has been that women aged 40 and younger, when diagnosed with DCIS, were more likely to have it recur, noted Dr. Aruna Turaka, a fellow in the department of radiation oncology at Fox Chase Cancer Center, Philadelphia. But her new study — which she is due to present Wednesday at the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology annual meeting in Boston — found otherwise.
Breast cancer is more likely to kill poor women than their more affluent counterparts, research shows.
A study of breast cancer patients in England and Wales diagnosed between 1986 and 1999 found overall long-term survival rates are improving.
However, survival rates one year after diagnosis were worse among poor women than those who were more affluent.
And the British Journal of Cancer study found this “deprivation gap” doubled five years after diagnosis.
