Breast Cancer News and Research

Latest Breast Cancer News and Research

Gemcitabine may help breast cancer patients with advanced disease live longer

Breast cancer patients with advanced disease live longer when treated with a new drug, gemcitabine, in combination with paclitaxel, a traditional drug, according to results of a landmark global phase III study presented today at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) annual meeting.

6 Jun 2004

High school student makes significant contribution to breast cancer research

A high school student from Albany, New York, has made a significant contribution toward understanding how mutations to a gene called BRCA-1 contributes to hereditary breast cancer.

5 Jun 2004

60,000 set to run in race for the cure

Participants at the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation National Race for the Cure® were among the first to view a new breast cancer ribbon today as they descended on the National Mall.

5 Jun 2004

Drug Tarceva improves survival chance for patients with advanced lung cancer

Roche OSI Pharmaceuticals and Genentech today announced that their investigational drug Tarceva(TM) (erlotinib) achieved a significant 42.5% improvement in median survival compared to placebo in patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).

5 Jun 2004

Socioeconomic gradients in stage and grade of breast cancer at diagnosis

Women living in deprived areas of the United Kingdom tend to have more advanced breast cancer at diagnosis than those living in affluent areas, finds new research on bmj.com.

5 Jun 2004

New generation drug therapy targets the individual

The days of ‘one size fits all’ medicines may soon be a thing of the past for people undergoing radical drug therapies for chronic or serious illnesses.

5 Jun 2004

Cigarettes damage women’s lungs more than men’s lungs

Noting that lung cancer is women’s number one cancer killer, Loyola medical oncologist Dr. Kathy S. Albain will speak on the molecular differences in lung cancer between men and women, June 4, at the annual meeting of Women Against Lung Cancer.

3 Jun 2004

Understanding focal adhesion kinase (FAK) may lead to new cancer treatments

Scientists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have found an unexpected way to turn off a cellular enzyme involved in the progression of several types of human cancers.

2 Jun 2004

Men and women at equal lung cancer risk from smoking

The most detailed analysis to date of lung cancer risk among women does not support the theory that women are more susceptible than men to developing lung cancer after comparable amounts of smoking.

2 Jun 2004

Dow Corning breast implant claim checks to be mailed soon

Today is the effective date in the Dow Corning bankruptcy, finally allowing injured people's claims to be processed. The court-appointed claims administrator for the $2.35 billion fund said that thousands of letters will go out June 1st and that the first checks should be mailed June 15th.

2 Jun 2004

Discovery of a key marker in breast cancer tumors

Cancer researchers at Georgetown University Medical Center have discovered a key marker in breast cancer tumors that may help determine which women with early stage breast cancer have a better chance of survival. The research appears in the June 1 issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

31 May 2004

There are still benefits from hormone therapy after menopause

Despite the highly publicized closing of the Women’s Health Initiative study, the scientific community should not rule out that women may benefit from hormone therapy after menopause, say researchers at UC Davis, Duke and Harvard Universities.

31 May 2004

Breast reduction instead of removal a viable breast cancer alternative

Women at high risk of developing breast cancer may have an additional preventative alternative to having their breasts removed – breast reduction surgery, according to a study published in the June issue of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery®, the official medical journal of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS).

31 May 2004

Women who regularly take aspirin at lower risk of breast cancer

Women who regularly take aspirin seem to be at lower risk of the most common type of breast cancer than those who do not take aspirin, report researchers from Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health and College of Physicians & Surgeons, Weill Cornell Medical College , and New York-Presbyterian Hospital.

31 May 2004

Women exposed in adulthood to cytomegalovirus may be at greater risk of breast cancer

A study just published in the prestigious British Journal of Cancer by researchers at the University of Otago's Christchurch School of Medicine and Health Sciences and Dunedin School of Medicine, and the University of Melbourne, has found evidence of a link between a common virus and breast cancer in women under the age of 40 years.

31 May 2004

Smoking a lot more harmful than previously thought

The U.S. Surgeon General has released a new comprehensive report on smoking and health, revealing for the first time that smoking causes diseases in nearly every organ of the body. Published 40 years after the surgeon general's first report on smoking -- which concluded that smoking was a definite cause of three serious diseases -- this newest report finds that cigarette smoking is conclusively linked to diseases such as leukemia, cataracts, pneumonia and cancers of the cervix, kidney, pancreas and stomach.

30 May 2004

Physicians need to understand comorbidities to better help cancer patients

Findings from a new cancer study may seem obvious — a patient’s overall health is a critical factor in assessing prognosis. But the study’s authors say data about patients’ non-cancer ailments, called comorbidities, are not currently incorporated into cancer statistics.

27 May 2004

Clinical trial of 5 day treatment for earliest form of breast cancer

Researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University’s Massey Cancer Center have begun a clinical trial testing the effectiveness of an established balloon catheter radiation delivery device on the earliest form of breast cancer, ductal carcinoma in situ.

27 May 2004

Smoking causes diseases in nearly every organ of the body

U.S. Surgeon General Richard H. Carmona today released a new comprehensive report on smoking and health, revealing for the first time that smoking causes diseases in nearly every organ of the body.

27 May 2004

Women who regularly take aspirin seem to be at lower risk of the most common type of breast cancer

Women who regularly take aspirin seem to be at lower risk of the most common type of breast cancer than those who do not take aspirin, report researchers from Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health and College of Physicians & Surgeons, Weill Cornell Medical College, and NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital.

25 May 2004