Tag Archive for 'Breast cancer'

U.S. shows progress on cancer report

Published on June 26, 2011 in Health and Wellness. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

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Around 1, 596, 670 Americans will be diagnosed with cancer this year. Within that number, about 571, 950, which is more than 1,500 each day, will die. These figures come from the June 17 report from the American Cancer Society. They update cancer incidence and mortality statistics every year. Their Cancer Facts and Figures 2011 provides a more in depth explanation of where the United States rates when it comes to cancer.

Dropping since the 1990s, cancer death rates have proceeded to decline among males and females in almost all racial and ethnic groups since 1998, according to the report. The ACS believes that the falling rate in cancer mortality rates from 1990 to 2007 designate almost 900,000 lives that could have been lost due to cancer but were not.

Even though they have been increasing since the 1930s, lung cancer death rates have been on the decline for women. For men, the death rates began to fall about 10 years ago. This said, lung cancer will be the cause of almost 25 percent of all cancer deaths for women in 2011.

From 1997 to 2007, cancer death rates for men plunged by 22.2 percent for men and for women by 13.9 percent. Most of the lessening was the result of decreasing mortality rates for colorectal and breast cancer for women and lung, prostate and colorectal cancers for men.

Disturbingly, the report notes that the American Cancer Society reveals that cancer death rates for the least educated are more than twice the amount of that for the most educated. The report claims that if this difference was eradicated, 37 percent of the premature cancer deaths that happened in 2007 among those between 25 to 64 years old, could have been prevented. This number mirrors more than 60,000 lives.

Even though all this is good news, cancer is still the second-leading cause of death in the U.S. The ACS reports that cancer is responsible for almost one in every four deaths. Currently, only heart disease kills more.

Breast cancer after hormone therapy usually more advanced

Published on November 16, 2010 in Health and Wellness. 0 Comments Tags: , .

Most people already know that hormone treatment after menopause can raise the risk for breast cancer. What many may not know is that researchers are now saying that it usually causes the cancer to be more advanced and deadly.

A recent study was performed on the most commonly prescribed hormone replacement pill called Prempro. It consists of estrogens from horse urine and a synthetic cousin of the hormone progesterone.

In the past few years women have been warned to scale down their hormone use, and these new findings seem to back up that advice. The article concerning this can be found in the October 18 week issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association.

Dr. Rowan Chlebowski, an author and oncologist who treats breast cancer patients at the Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in Torrance, California, says that too many doctors believe that women can safely take hormones for menopause symptoms such as hot flashes for 4 or 5 years. He says that doctors should not think this anymore and patients should try to stop hormone therapy after a year or two. He also says it is still not known exactly how long these hormones can be taken without increasing one’s breast cancer risk.

The new findings come from a follow-up of 12,788 women who were part of the Women’s Health Initiative, a major federally financed study that compared women taking hormones with a group taking placebos.In 2002, 3 years ahead of schedule, the study was shut down because researchers discovered that hormones were creating small but notable increases in the risk of breast cancer, heart disease, strokes and blood clots in the lungs.

Six million American women had been on the hormone treatments, but the amount rapidly decreased to around half of that. The breast cancer rate also started to fall, so many researchers link the decrease with the reduction in hormone use. The researchers noticed small but substantial increases in harmful effects in women who were on the hormones. As the study had shown earlier, women taking hormones are more likely to acquire invasive breast cancer. Their rate of the disease was 0.43% per year, as compared with the placebo group, which was 0.34% per year.

In the group of women with breast cancer, the women who had taken hormones were more likely to develop cancerous lymph nodes, which is an ominous sign of a more advanced disease – 23.7% versus 16.2% in the placebo group.

There were also more women who had taken hormones that died from breast cancer – 0.03% per year, versus 0.01% in the placebo group. That comes down to 2.6 deaths per 10,000 women each year in the hormone taking group, which is two times as many as the 1.3 deaths per 10,000 in the placebo group.

New life-extending advances in the treatment for ovarian, prostate and breast cancers

Published on June 7, 2010 in Health and Wellness. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Recently, researchers found that the extensively used drug Avastin can help keep ovarian cancer at repressed if used for a prolonged time. Avastin, which is made by the Genentech unit of Roche, reduces the speed of the development of the blood vessels that provide nourishment to tumors. It is probably the best-selling drug and has already been approved for treating colorectal, breast, lung brain and kidney cancers.

There was another study that was presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology which revealed that men who had high-risk prostate cancer lived longer if they were treated with radiation along with hormone-blocking drugs.

Also, a drug created from a marine sponge has been found to prolong the lives of women who have advanced breast cancer to about two and a half months.

The ovarian cancer study included 1,873 women who had recently been diagnosed with Stage 3 or Stage 4 ovarian cancer who had also had surgery to take out as much cancer as possible. The women were given either standard chemotherapy and a placebo, standard chemotherapy and Avastin, or standard chemotherapy and Avastin along with about 10 months of Avastin alone.

It took an average of 14.1 months for the cancer to get worse for those who received the extended Avastin treatment, compared with 10.3 months for those who were given just the standard chemotherapy and the placebo. Markedly better results were not achieved with the short-term use of Avastin than with standard chemotherapy alone.

There were 1,200 men involved in the prostate cancer study. Their disease had spread to the area around the prostate or they had other high risk factors like a high PSA level. During the trial, 74 percent of the men who had undergone the radiation therapy were still alive after seven years, compared with 66 percent of the men who had been given only the hormone therapy.

The drug, Eribulin, derived from the marine sponge, was tested in a study of 762 women with metastatic breast cancer. The women who were given Eribulin lived an average of 13.1 months, compared with 10.7 months for the women who received the drug that their doctor chose.

One-third of breast cancer cases may be avoidable

Published on May 1, 2010 in Health and Wellness. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Supporters of eating less and exercising have won yet again as results from a new study have been divulged. According to researchers, around a third of all breast cancer cases in Western countries could possibly be avoided if women consumed less food and exercised more.

Even though early diagnosis, mammograms and better treatments have helped to slow the disease, experts are now focusing on changing unhealthy behaviors like overeating and being too sedentary.

This new study only adds to a string of existing findings that lifestyle changes in areas such as smoking, eating, exercising and sun exposure can have a crucial effect on all kinds of cancer rates.

The head of epidemiology, Carlo La Veechia, emphasized the importance of  taking these findings seriously when he said “what can be achieved with screening has been achieved. We can’t do much more. It’s time to move on to other things.” He spoke last month at a European breast cancer conference in Barcelona.

Michelle Holmes, a cancer expert at Harvard University, warned that people might mistakenly believe that their likelihood of getting cancer leans more on their genes than on their lifestyle.

Breast cancer is currently the most common cancer among women. In Europe, around 421,000 new cases and almost 90,000 deaths occurred in 2008. Last year in the United States, there were more than 190,000 new cases  and  40,000 deaths.

During an average woman’s lifetime, her chance of developing breast cancer is around one in eight. According to a 2006 study by British researchers, obese women are up to 60 percent more likely to develop any cancer than normal-weight women.

Numerous breast cancers are encouraged by estrogen, which is a hormone manufactured in fat tissue. This is why experts believe that the more fat a woman has, the more estrogen she is likely to produce, which could initiate breast cancer. This said, even slim women can help reduce their cancer risk with exercise by converting more of the body’s fat into muscle.

The American Cancer Society now recommends that women get 45 to 60 minutes of physical activity for five or more days a week to reduce their chances of getting breast cancer.

Some good news for women who have survived breast cancer and want children; a separate study has found that breast cancer survivors who have children later, do not seem to be at any more risk for dying from cancer. For a long time, doctors have been troubled that pregnancy could ignite hormonal changes which could cause the disease to return. For this reason, many women have been told to avoid getting pregnant after they recover from cancer. The European breast cancer conference had experts who announced that cancer survivors who get pregnant are safe and it does not appear to be linked to the disease’s recurrence.

Smoking may increase risk for breast cancer

Published on April 28, 2009 in Health and Wellness. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

It has long been a fact that smoking causes lung cancer and is a culprit in several other cancers as well, but, until recently, scientists have usually claimed that it did not have an effect on breast cancer. A Canadian panel of experts is now disputing the long-standing view.

On Thursday, April 23, the panel revealed the findings from new studies indicating that smoking increases the risk of breast cancer and cautioned that young women and girls were vulnerable to certain risks when exposed to smoke. Even exposure to secondhand smoke during their important period of development may raise their risk for breast cancer later in life.

In the report, heavy evidence was found that secondhand smoke played a key role in pre-menopausal breast cancer, but did not find enough proof that it increased the risk in post-menopausal breast cancer.

In the wake of these findings, most scientists say that there is not enough evidence to conclude that smoking plays a role in breast cancer. The International Agency for Research on Cancer said in a current report that there is scarce if any link between active smoking and breast cancer. In 2006, the surgeon general’s office announced that there was not enough evidence to claim that secondhand smoke causes breast cancer.

A message women have received in the past is that you must go and get a mammogram because there is nothing you can do to stop breast cancer. Dr. Anthony Miller, a member of the panel and associate director for research of the University of Toronto’s school of public health, says that is total nonsense. He said, “You can be more physically active. You can eat a good diet and avoid becoming overweight. Do not drink heavily – and do not smoke.” Miller said, in so many words, is the main thing for young women to realize is that if you smoke, you not only increase your risk for lung cancer but for breast cancer as well.

New test improves prediction of breast cancer

Published on December 13, 2008 in Health and Wellness. 0 Comments Tags: , .

On Friday December 12, researchers revealed the most advanced test that can foresee a normal woman’s chances of developing breast cancer. This new test is more efficient than the other strategies that doctors have depended on in the past.

This new test is the first and foremost to blend multitudes of genes and unique characteristics such as age and childbearing to measure the probability of getting breast cancer in women without a pronounced family history of this dreadful disease. Three-fourth of all cases are women who have no family history of breast cancer.

While testing its legitimacy, a California study precisely categorized 50 percent more women with breast cancer as high risk than the existing system did and correctly tallied others lower. The reveal was announced at a cancer convention in Texas

Even though this test, as well as others, affirming to foresee risks are available, specialists suggest that more research is needed to substantiate their merit.

An uncomplicated test has been desired by both doctors and women for years that could disclose the threat of breast cancer apart from the two BRCA genes. These genes are prone to cause cancer at earlier stages of life, but they are a factor in a scarce percentage of all cases. There are four companies that have begun to sell more expansive multi-gene tests, but their validity is broadly contested.

Recurring mammograms or MRI scans are recommended for women who are considered to be at high risk. Some women may even contemplate taking hormone-blocking drugs such as tamoxifen. 

The new Onco Vue test is made by a the Oklahoma City-based InterGenetics Inc. company. To avoid disapproval, it is providing the test through doctors only, instead of directly to consumers and proving reliability by using population studies such as the one revealed on Friday. 

The test, which costs $397, searches for 22 modifications in 19 genes that have been traced to breast cancer. Around the country, 33 sites provide the test. First women complete a medical form and then gargle with a mouthwash that unleashes cheek cells that are put into a test tube to be evaluated. These factors are measured by a computer model that rates the cancer risk.

This test includes elements of the risk assessment tool that scientists and doctors use currently-the Gail model, which is named after Dr. Mitchell Gail, the National Cancer Institute biostatistician who created it two decades ago. Some of the elements of the test are age, how many family members have had breast cancer and when a woman first had children or had their first period.

Even though the model is pretty rough and has several restrictions, doctors greatly depend on it. The Internet site for it is sought after about 25,000 times a month.