Tag Archives: antonio-breast

Diagnostic tool Oncotype DX associated with reduction in chemotherapy rates post-surgery in younger women with breast cancer

Mariana Chavez Mac Gregor, M.D., assistant professor, health services research and breast medical oncology, will present the findings at a poster session of the 2014 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium. Oncotype DX is a 21-gene assay used to help estimate the likelihood of recurrence in women with early-stage breast cancer and, thus, determine those who may or may not benefit from adjuvant chemotherapy…

Tamoxifen reduces breast cancer rates by nearly a third for 20 years — ScienceDaily

The IBIS-I trial (International Breast Cancer Intervention Study), led by Queen Mary University of London and funded by Cancer Research UK, examined the long-term risks and benefits of taking tamoxifen to prevent breast cancer in women at high risk of the disease (aged 35-70 years old, primarily with a family history of breast cancer). During the study 7,154 pre and post-menopausal women were randomized to receive either tamoxifen (20mg daily) or a matching placebo for five years. After completing treatment, the health of all participants was monitored with an average follow-up time of 16 years and maximum of 22 years. The new and extended analysis, presented at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, revealed 251 women from the tamoxifen group versus 350 from the placebo group developed breast cancer — a reduction of 29 per cent. …

High levels of immune cells in breast tumors may help ID patients who benefit from trastuzumab

"We have previously shown that high levels of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes [immune cells in a tumor] are predictive of response to trastuzumab and chemotherapy administered after surgery for early-stage, HER2-positive breast cancer using samples from patients enrolled on the randomized, adjuvant phase III clinical trial called the FinHER study," said Sherene Loi, M.D., Ph.D., medical oncologist and head of the Translational Breast Cancer Genomics Lab at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Melbourne, Australia. "Our new data further support the positive relationship between tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes and better outcomes with trastuzumab therapy, this time in a cohort of patients with newly diagnosed HER2-positive breast cancer who received the therapy before surgery. …

Herceptin plus taxol highly effective in low-risk breast cancer

The study is the first major trial to examine the Herceptin-Taxol combination in patients who have a type of breast cancer with the biology known as small, node-negative, HER2+. Results were presented during the 2013 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium. "This is great news for patients and their physicians," said Kathy Albain, MD, of Loyola University Medical Center, who is one of the co-authors of the national multicenter study. "This study identifies a new treatment option for this population of patients that is highly effective and has minimal side effects." First author is Sara Tolaney, MD, of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute…