The identification of patients with high-risk breast cancer is key to knowing whether a patient will require only the removal of the tumor by surgery or whether if she will need additional chemotherapy to make sure the removal of breast cancer cells. Currently, known genetic mutations and expression patterns are determined, but the puzzle of the genetics of the disease remains a large unfinished part…
And since trastuzumab, and not chemotherapy alone, is the standard of care for the HER2-positive sub-class of breast cancer, there is no need to test for these lymphocytes in HER2-positive patients in order to predict outcome, say researchers from Mayo Clinic in Florida. These findings, presented at the 2014 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, don’t mean that immune function in this class of cancer isn’t important — just that it is likely more complicated than measuring the number of these lymphocytes, says the study’s lead author, Edith A. Perez, M.D., deputy director at large, Mayo Clinic Cancer Center, and director of the Breast Cancer Translational Genomics Program at Mayo Clinic in Florida. …
The multi-center, non-randomized trial was designed to evaluate the safety, tolerability and antitumor activity of bi-weekly infusions of pembrolizumab (MK-3475, marketed as Keytruda�). The researchers enrolled 27 patients, aged 29 to 72 years, who had metastatic triple-negative breast cancer that either relapsed after treatment for early stage disease or progressed on therapy for advanced disease. …
In a study released Monday in the Annals of Internal Medicine, Tosteson and colleagues, including lead author Brian Sprague, MD, provide evidence on the benefits and harms of adding ultrasound to breast cancer screening for women who have had a negative mammogram and also have dense breasts. …
The identification of patients with high-risk breast cancer is key to knowing whether a patient will require only the removal of the tumor by surgery or whether if she will need additional chemotherapy to make sure the removal of breast cancer cells. Currently, known genetic mutations and expression patterns are determined, but the puzzle of the genetics of the disease remains a large unfinished part…
The results have just been published in the scientific journal Nature Communications. Chromosome segregation Recently there has been a lot of interest in understanding the chromosome segregation process and the impact of the protein BubR1…
“I’m not saying that people with metastatic breast cancer shouldn’t eat turkey during the holidays, but triple-negative breast cancer appears to have found a way to process tryptophan more quickly, equipping cancer cells to survive while in circulation, which allows them to metastasize,” says Thomas Rogers, the paper’s first author and PhD candidate in the laboratory of CU Cancer Center investigator, Jennifer Richer, PhD. When healthy cells become detached from the foundation on which they grow, they are programmed to undergo cell death through a process known as anoikis (“without a home” in Greek). This means that in order to metastasize, cancer cells have to evade anoikis — they have to survive while in suspension, unattached from a foundation. …
The trial enrolled 118 post-menopausal women with metastatic hormone-receptor-positive breast cancer whose cancer continued to progress after being treated with an aromatase inhibitor. The study, based on work done by Doris Germain of Mt. Sinai Hospital, found that the combination of the drugs bortezomib and fulvestrant — versus fulvestrant alone — doubled the rate of survival at 12 months and reduced the chance of cancer progression overall. Bortezomib, used most commonly in treating multiple myeloma, is a proteasome inhibitor that prevents cancer cells from clearing toxic material…
In a world-first the researchers were able to show that changes in the isotopic composition of zinc, which can be detected in a person’s breast tissue, could make it possible to identify a ‘biomarker’ (a measurable indicator) of early breast cancer. A report of the research by the Oxford University-led team, which included researchers from Imperial College London and the Natural History Museum, London, is published in the Royal Society of Chemistry journal Metallomics. The pilot study analysed zinc in the blood and blood serum of ten subjects (five breast cancer patients and five healthy controls) alongside a range of breast tissue samples from breast cancer patients. By using techniques that are over 100 times more sensitive to changes in the isotopic composition of metals than anything currently used by clinicians, the researchers were able to show that they could detect key differences in zinc caused when cancer subtly alters the way that cells process the metal…
In a world-first the researchers were able to show that changes in the isotopic composition of zinc, which can be detected in a person’s breast tissue, could make it possible to identify a ‘biomarker’ (a measurable indicator) of early breast cancer. A report of the research by the Oxford University-led team, which included researchers from Imperial College London and the Natural History Museum, London, is published in the Royal Society of Chemistry journal Metallomics. The pilot study analysed zinc in the blood and blood serum of ten subjects (five breast cancer patients and five healthy controls) alongside a range of breast tissue samples from breast cancer patients…