Cancer Research Lab

A Web-based reminder system can significantly increase mammography screening rates among eligible women, according to a report in the Archives of Internal Medicine for March 26.

Screening mammography is currently recommended every one to two years for women age 40 and older. However, recent reports suggest that a large proportion of eligible women, perhaps the majority, do not undergo screening.

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Swiss drugmaker Roche said on Thursday that Avastin had been approved in Europe for the treatment of women with metastatic breast cancer.

The European Commission had approved Avastin for the first line treatment of women with metastatic breast cancer in combination with paclitaxel, Roche said in a statement.

Once-weekly treatment with risedronate prevents bone loss in breast cancer survivors who underwent chemotherapy, according to the results of a new study, suggesting that early bisphosphonate treatment be considered for these patients.

Previous research has shown bone loss and fractures in women with chemotherapy-induced early menopause, the authors explain, but few studies have examined prevention of chemotherapy-induced bone loss.

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In patients with early breast cancer, switching to an aromatase inhibitor after 2 to 3 years of tamoxifen therapy provides better survival than simply continuing tamoxifen for a further 2 or 3 years, Italian researchers report.

Previous reports have shown that as an adjuvant treatment for early breast cancer, aromatase inhibitors reduce the risk of recurrence compared tamoxifen. However, it has been unclear whether this actually translates into improved survival.

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Clinicians from the UK say they have “robust data” to support routine assessment of basal cytokeratins and androgen receptors, in addition to traditional pathologic parameters (tumor size and lymph node status), in women with triple-negative breast cancer.

This additional information yields useful prognostic information that can help guide treatment decisions, report researchers from the UK in the January 1 issue of Cancer.

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Five years of letrozole is more effective than five years of tamoxifen as initial adjuvant therapy for postmenopausal endocrine-responsive early breast cancer, according to an updated analysis of the Breast International Group (BIG) 1-98 Study.

This study compared the outcomes of 8,010 women with early endocrine-responsive breast cancer who were randomized to receive one of four adjuvant treatment regimens for 5 years: letrozole; letrozole followed by tamoxifen; tamoxifen; or tamoxifen followed by letrozole.

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An Arkansas jury on Thursday found that Wyeth provided adequate warnings about the risks associated with its hormone replacement therapy drugs and that the medicines were neither defective nor a primary cause of a woman’s breast cancer.

In a complete victory for the drugmaker, the jury of nine women and three men, after about a day and a half of deliberations, also found that Wyeth was not negligent in its promotion of the drugs, Prempro and Premarin, and that plaintiff Helene Rush, 72, should have known about the breast cancer risks associated with them.

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A common coding variant in CASP8 decreases the risk for breast cancer, according to a report in the February 11th advance online publication of Nature Genetics.

“More breast cancer genes will be identified over the next year or so, and this may help define pathways that might be good treatment targets,” Dr. Angela Cox from Sheffield University Medical School, UK said. “It may be also possible to identify combinations of genes which together account for a higher percentage of the familial risk.”

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Women with breast cancer who are involved in the process of selecting a surgeon are more likely to be treated by more experienced surgeons and in hospitals with cancer programs, according to a report in the January 20th issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

Surgeon and hospital characteristics can influence the outcomes of cancer treatments, the authors explain, but little is known about the factors associated with referral pathways.

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Adding single photon emission computed tomography with computed tomography (SPECT/CT) imaging to lymphoscintigraphy improves sentinel node identification in overweight patients with breast cancer, according to a report by Israeli researchers in the February issue of Journal of Nuclear Medicine.

“We think SPECT/CT, as a minimally invasive procedure for sentinel nodes status, is a useful tool in correct staging and, as a consequence, in accurate therapeutic planning,” Dr. Hedva Lerman from Tel-Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, Tel-Aviv, said.

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