Tennis for Life

Prone to Error: Earliest Steps to Find Cancer

tennisforlife98 — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 17:54:19 +0000

Discerning the difference between some benign lesions and early stage breast cancer is a particularly challenging area of pathology, according to medical records and interviews with doctors and patients.

Diagnosing D.C.I.S. “is a 30-year history of confusion, differences of opinion and under- and overtreatment,” said Dr. Shahla Masood, the head of pathology at the University of Florida College of Medicine in Jacksonville. “There are studies that show that diagnosing these borderline breast lesions occasionally comes down to the flip of a coin.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/20/health/20cancer.html?_r=1&src=me&ref=homepage

Fish Oil May Fight Breast Cancer

tennisforlife98 — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 21:05:01 +0000

The analysis included more than 35,000 postmenopausal women ages 50 to 76 who didn’t have breast cancer at the study outset. By the end of 2007, 880 of these women had developed breast cancer.

Women who reported taking fish oil at the start of the study were roughly half as likely to develop ductal carcinoma of the breast, the most common form of breast cancer, during the follow-up years. Women taking fish oil showed no reduced risk of the less-common lobular breast cancer.

Other supplements showed no anticancer benefit in the new study. These included glucosamine, chondroitin, grapeseed, black cohosh, soy, dong quai, St. John’s wort, coenzyme Q10, garlic pills, ginkgo biloba, ginseng, melatonin, acidophilus and methylsulfonylmethane.

Progress in Predicting Invasive Breast Cancer

tennisforlife98 — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 17:58:26 +0000

Researchers studied nearly 1,200 women with ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), a noninvasive and very early form of breast cancer confined to the milk ducts. They found that a combination of three tissue biomarkers was associated with a high risk of developing an invasive breast cancer with the potential to spread eight years later.

Also, DCIS that was diagnosed from a breast lump was linked to a greater risk of subsequent invasive cancer than DCIS that was diagnosed by mammography.
There’s still a long way to go before the personalized approach to treatment is ready for prime time.

http://www.webmd.com/breast-cancer/news/20100428/progress-in-predicting-invasive-breast-cancer

17 Years Later, Stage 4 Survivor Is Savoring a Life Well Lived

tennisforlife98 — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 16:55:38 +0000

Stage 4 breast cancer is something I’ve had for 17 years. The average life expectancy with the diagnosis is 30 months, so this is a little like saying I’m 172 years old: seemingly impossible. But it’s not. I first found I had the illness in 1988, and it was rediagnosed as Stage 4 in 1993. That’s 22 years all together, which is the reason I post each year on the anniversary of the day I learned my cancer was back: to let women know that it happens, that people do live with this for years. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/27/health/27case.html?src=me&ref=homepage

Could multivitamins raise breast cancer risk?

tennisforlife98 — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 03:35:38 +0000

The researchers say, it’s biologically plausible that multivitamins could have such an effect, and the potential link “merits further investigation.”

The findings come from a decade-long study of more than 35,000 Swedish women who were between the ages of 49 and 83 and cancer-free at the outset. Over an average of 10 years, 974 women were diagnosed with breast cancer. http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE62S4F520100329?loomia_ow=t0:s0:a49:g43:r1:c0.403846:b32566940:z0

Health Buzz: Study Defends Mammography Benefits

tennisforlife98 — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 04:23:59 +0000

The results, published in the Journal of Medical Screening, contradict findings of a recently published study that found screening had no effect on breast cancer deaths, according to Reuters. http://www.usnews.com/health/managing-your-healthcare/cancer/articles/2010/03/31/health-buzz-study-defends-mammography-benefits.html

Gene Ruling Could Have Broad Reach

tennisforlife98 — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 04:21:30 +0000

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Robert Sweet invalidated seven patents covering the BRCA1 and 2 genes linked to hereditary forms of cancer that were licensed exclusively to Myriad Genetics Inc., Salt Lake City, by the University of Utah Research Foundation. Myriad says it plans to appeal. http://www.siteadvisor.com/securesearch/?premium=false&client_uid=2845912976&client_ver=3.0.1.163&client_type=IEPlugin&suite=true&aff_id=105&locale=en_us&os_ver=5.1.3.0

Study: Pregnancy safe for breast cancer survivors

tennisforlife98 — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 02:13:07 +0000

In research presented Friday at a European breast cancer conference in Barcelona, experts said pregnancy in women who have been treated for breast cancer is safe and does not seem to be linked with the disease’s recurrence. http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jJoDYysGvi7UVD4Za4VZ-i0crbMAD9ELUMOO2

Would You Pay $20 for Access to a Breast Cancer Cure?

tennisforlife98 — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 17:04:55 +0000

From the New York Times today:

The Pink Army Cooperative, a Canadian organization, has set out to lower the cost of cancer treatments, while also making them more effective by embracing a new wave of synthetic biology technology (a field that was recently the subject of a piece in The New York Times Magazine).

In particular, the group hopes to build a relatively cheap virus in its labs that could be tweaked on an individual basis to hunt down and kill breast cancer cells.

While there are plenty of start-ups chasing this same, very challenging goal, managing director Andrew Hessel has set up the first “biotech company that is owned by the people,” as he puts it.

A payment of 20 Canadian dollars (about 20 American dollars at current exchange rates) will buy you a spot in this cooperative. That fee entitles you to have access to the cancer cure created by the cooperative — if the organization can solve a host of massive technological, legal and economic issues first, of course. Breast cancer patients receiving the cure would also have to pay extra money for tests and treatment. http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/20/would-you-pay-20-for-access-to-a-breast-cancer-cure/?hp

After Cancer, Removing a Healthy Breast

tennisforlife98 — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 15:07:05 +0000

The percentage of women asking to remove both breasts after a cancer diagnosis has more than doubled in recent years. Over all, about 6 percent of women undergoing surgery for breast cancer in 2006 opted for the procedure, formally known as contralateral prophylactic mastectomy. Among women in their 40s who underwent breast cancer surgery, one in 10 opted to have both breasts removed, according to a University of Minnesota study presented last week in St. Louis at the annual meeting of the Society of Surgical Oncology. http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/08/after-cancer-women-remove-healthy-breast/?8dpc