The findings by researchers in the U.K. and Canada will eventually enable doctors to better predict survival times in women with the disease and tailor the most appropriate treatment to their type of tumor, said Carlos Caldas, one of the authors and the chairman of cancer medicine at the University of Cambridge in England.

The study results should spur drugmakers to develop more drugs targeting tyrosine kinases, phosphatases and chromatin modifiers as possible treatments for the newly identified subtypes of breast cancer, Caldas said. http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-04-18/doctors-redefine-breast-cancer-into-10-subtypes-in-study

The study, published Friday in the Journal of Women’s Health, found that consuming the same amount of white wine did not have the same effect in premenopausal women participating in the study.

The authors asserted this was the first rigorous study to find that red wine is a “nutritional aromatase inhibitor in healthy premenopausal women.” Another study has found that women who drank more red wine showed less breast density on mammograms–an emerging marker for breast cancer risk– than those who drank other forms of alcohol.

http://www.latimes.com/health/boostershots/la-heb-breast-cancer-red-wine-study-says-20120106,0,2119902.story

Breast cancer experts are cheering what could be some of the biggest advances in more than a decade: two new medicines that significantly delay the time until women with very advanced cases get worse.

In a large international study, an experimental drug from Genentech called pertuzumab held cancer at bay for a median of 18 months when given with standard treatment, versus 12 months for others given only the usual treatment. It also strongly appears to be improving survival, and follow-up is continuing to see if it does.

“You don’t see that very often. … It’s a spectacular result,” said one study leader, Dr. Sandra Swain, medical director of Washington Hospital Center’s cancer institute.

In a second study, another drug long used in organ transplants but not tried against breast cancer — everolimus, sold as Afinitor by Novartis AG — kept cancer in check for a median of 7 months in women whose disease was worsening despite treatment with hormone-blocking drugs. A comparison group that received only hormonal medicine had just a 3-month delay in disease progression.

Afinitor works in a novel way, seems “unusually effective” and sets a new standard of care, said Dr. Peter Ravdin, breast cancer chief at the UT Health Science Center in San Antonio. He has no role in the work or ties to drugmakers. Most patients have tumors like those in this study — their growth is fueled by estrogen. http://www.northjersey.com/news/national/Big_promise_is_seen_in_2_new_breast_cancer_drugs.html

The commissioner, Dr. Margaret A. Hamburg, said that the drug was not helping breast cancer patients to live longer or control their tumors, but did expose them to potentially serious side effects such as severe high blood pressure and hemorrhaging.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/19/business/fda-revokes-approval-of-avastin-as-breast-cancer-drug.html?_r=1&hp

Women given letrozole for five years after surgery had a 20 percent lower risk of breast cancer recurrence and were 21 percent less likely to die during the study, compared with those who were given only tamoxifen, long the gold standard. Neither combination of drugs significantly lowered the likelihood of recurrence or death compared with taking letrozole alone, researchers found. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/25/health/research/25regimens.html?scp=1&sq=Femara&st=cse

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/16/business/in-the-breast-cancer-fight-the-pinking-of-america.html?scp=2&sq=breast%20cancer&st=cse