Yourlawyer.com (Breast Cancer News)

Nicotine Contributes to Spread of Breast Cancer

Mon, 20 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0700

A new study has found that exposure to nicotine - the addictive ingredient in tobacco - can contribute to breast cancer metastasis, the spread of cancer to other parts of the body that kills many patients. The study, published in the Oct. 15 issue of Cancer Research, not only adds to the list of smoking dangers, but also points to possible hazards of nicotine-containing products sometimes prescribed to help people stop smoking.

In a series of lab tests, researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, Boston, discovered that certain breast epithelial-like cells produce different subtypes of the nicotine receptor nAChR, as do certain breast tumor cells. When these receptors were bound with nicotine, they started signaling the cells to grow and migrate, the study showed. The findings were confirmed in mice.

Nicotine did not appear to cause metastasis and tumor growth on its own, but the researchers were unable to determine exactly what molecules nicotine must combine with to encourage cancer spread.

It has long been known that nicotine can cause some types of cancer, but not much has been known about the role it plays in the spread of the disease. The study authors said that more research is needed in this area.

The authors of the study also said that it appears that any exposure to nicotine - including secondhand smoke - may promote tumor growth and the spread of breast cancer. The study also casts doubt on the safety of nicotine products given to help people stop smoking should be used cautiously.

"Overall, our study provides evidence to suggest that nicotine is a possible component for initiation of breast cancer induced by second-hand smoking," the study authors wrote. "The present investigation also warrants a caution for the clinical use of nicotine to relieve chronic pain or aid in the cessation of cigarette smoking."

Trans-Fats Implicated in Breast Cancer

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0700

European researchers reported this past Friday that trans-fats may raise the risk of breast cancer. The study found that women with the highest blood levels of trans-fats had about twice the risk of developing breast cancer as compared to women with the lowest levels. "At this stage, we can only recommend limiting the consumption of processed foods, the source of industrially produced trans-fatty acid," the researchers wrote in the American Journal of Epidemiology. Breast cancer is the second most common cancer killer of women, after lung cancer and will be diagnosed in 1.2 million people globally this year, killing 500,000.

Trans-fats or trans-fatty acids are made when creating artificially hardened fats, such during hydrogenization and were initially meant to be a healthful alternative for artery-clogging saturated fats such as butter and lard. But, the process of making vegetable oil behave like butter made it as unhealthy as butter. Trans-fats are being phased out of food because of their artery-clogging tendencies; New York and California have already banned trans-fats in restaurant foods, Canada and Britain have considered it, and many food companies have dropped trans-fats as an ingredient. Trans-fats can be found in cooking fats, baked goods, snacks, and a variety of other prepared foods. Omega-3 fatty acids are found in fatty fish such as salmon, walnuts, and leafy green vegetables.

Veronique Chajes of the French national scientific research center at the University of Paris-South and colleagues studied women taking part in a large European cancer trial and reviewed blood samples collected between 1995 and 1998 from 25,000 women who had volunteered to report on their eating and lifestyle habits and to also be tracked for years to see if they developed cancer. They research group studied 363 women diagnosed with breast cancer, comparing their blood levels of fatty acids with those of women without cancer. Chajes and colleagues found that the higher the levels of trans-fatty acids, the more likely a woman was to have cancer. The researchers also found that women with higher levels of omega-3 fatty acids, being studied for their potential benefits to health, were not any less likely to have breast cancer; obese women are more likely to develop breast cancer, among other types of cancer; and high-fat diets are linked with breast cancer.

Meanwhile, in another recent US study, data from over 184,000 women revealed a link between alcohol consumption and an increased risk of the most common type of breast cancer in post-menopausal women. The study is the largest of three major studies to conclude that drinking raises the risk of breast cancer for older women, according to Jasmine Lew, a researcher at the National Cancer Institute and the study's lead investigator. The research found that women who consumed one to two small drinks daily were 32 percent more likely to develop a hormone-sensitive tumor. The risk increased to 51 percent if the women consumed three or more drinks a day. "Regardless of the type of alcohol, the risk was evident," said Lew.

Hormone Replacement Therapy Even for Short Periods Raises Breast Cancer Risk

Wed, 16 Jan 2008 00:00:00 -0800

U.S. researchers reported this week that hormone replacement therapy (HRT) significantly raises the risk of an uncommon type of breast cancer. The study found women who took combined estrogen/progestin HRT for three years or more had four times the usual risk of lobular breast cancer. The study, published in the January issue of Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention, is one of dozens of studies looking to clarify the dangers of taking HRT to treat menopause symptoms. "Previous research indicated that five or more years of combined hormone-therapy use was necessary to increase overall breast-cancer risk," Dr. Christopher Li of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, who led the study, said. "Our study, the first specifically designed to evaluate the relationship between combined HRT and lobular breast cancers, suggests that a significantly shorter length of exposure to such hormones may confer an increased risk," he added.

According to the American Cancer Society, lobular breast cancer accounts for about 10 percent of all invasive breast cancers, the cancers that most threaten to spread to other parts of the body. The cancer can be treated with hormone-based therapies such as tamoxifen, but the tumors are more difficult to detect by mammograms, so that the cancer is generally diagnosed in more advanced stages.

Li's team asked over 1,500 post-menopausal women in western Washington whether or not they had used HRT; 1,044 women had breast cancer and 469 did not. The researchers found that women currently taking HRT were about three times as likely as other women to be among the cancer patients and those who used combined HRT for three or more years had a higher risk of lobular cancer. They also said that the incidence of invasive lobular cancer rose by 52 percent in the United States between the years 1987 to 1999. Also, cases of ductal-lobular breast cancer rose by 96 percent during and ductal cancer rates rose by three percent over the same time period. "Our research suggests that the use of post-menopausal hormone-replacement therapy, specifically the use of combined estrogen-plus-progestin preparations, may be contributing to this increase," said Li.

Historically, doctors believed HRT could protect women from chronic diseases, especially heart disease. But use of HRT plunged after the 2002 Women's Health Initiative study found that HRT could raise the risk not only of breast and ovarian cancer, but also of strokes and other serious conditions. Research since also indicates that the incidence of breast cancer dropped by 8.6 percent between 2001 and 2004 in the United States, in conjunction with the decline in HRT use. Today, doctors stress that younger women who need the drugs to relieve serious symptoms of menopause should still consider taking HRTs because new, lower-dose formulations are available and doctors now know to prescribe them for short periods of time.

"These findings are still of considerable public-health importance considering the estimated 57 million prescriptions for menopausal hormone therapy that continue to be filled in the United States," Li said.

Breast Cancer Patients Miss Out on Appropriate Treatment Thanks to Inaccurate Tests

Fri, 04 Jan 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Faulty cancer tests might be keeping some breast cancer patients from getting appropriate treatment. The American Cancer Society expected nearly 180,000 patients to be diagnosed with invasive breast cancer in the U.S. in 2007. Tests help determine whether women with invasive breast cancer receive drugs such as Genentech Inc.'s Herceptin; GlaxoSmithKline PLC's Tykerb and a number of anti-hormone medications, including the generic tamoxifen; and newer treatments such as AstraZenecaPLC's Arimidex and Faslodex. Several major private insurers, including UnitedHealth, Aetna Inc., and WellPoint Inc., say they pay for second-opinion tests but few doctors order them.

Tests relating anti-hormone drugs require pathologists to make judgment calls. One test examines whether cells have too much Her-2 protein; Herceptin targets and destroys those cells. Another checks for cell proteins serving as receptors for estrogen or progesterone—which can help tumors grow. If positive, doctors often prescribe drugs such as tamoxifen to suppress or block hormones. A 2006 study on Her-2 tests found 14-16% of those judged positive for Her-2 were negative; 18-23% judged negative were positive. After problems with hormone testing at a Newfoundland lab, retesting of tissue from 763 patients with negative results revealed 317—nearly half—were positive. In another study, 70% of 105 patients judged negative were positive when retested. "If we tried to market pregnancy tests with this rate of inaccuracy, they would be taken off the market," says Allen Gown, chief pathologist of Seattle’s PhenoPath Laboratories.

These concerns could add momentum to efforts by Congress and consumer groups pushing for increased lab testing oversight. Every prescription drug must receive Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval, but labs can develop and perform their own tests. The FDA approves certain testing kits, but labs can adjust procedures without sign-off. Rolf Ehrnstrom, corporate vice president of research and development at Dako Denmark A/S—maker of diagnostic tests and an equipment manufacturer that sells Her-2 and hormone-receptor test kits—said if labs follow testing recommendations, "you have a much more standardized way of doing it," adding, "We need to standardize and make more quality-assurance throughout the labs." Barry M. Straube, chief medical officer at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the U.S. agency that regulates labs, says his agency is examining tougher quality control. Labs must pass proficiency checks on only 83 tests from a 1992 list that doesn't include the breast cancer tests or dozens of others developed more recently.

The College of American Pathologists plans to require proficiency checks from the labs it oversees if they want to offer the Her-2 test. The college and the American Society of Clinical Oncology estimated 20% of Her-2 testing may be inaccurate and pathologists and oncologists say labs inexperienced in a particular test may not understand how small procedure changes affect results. Pathologists at Intermountain Healthcare found results on hormone receptor testing varied based on the day of the week a patient had surgery because when tissue was refrigerated or kept in a preservative over the weekend the results were different from tissue examined quickly.

Breast Cancer Patients Not Getting Adequate Breast Reconstruction Information

Wed, 26 Dec 2007 00:00:00 -0800

Breast cancer patients are not getting all the information they need to make educated treatment decisions. A new study—paid for by the National Cancer Institute—revealed most doctors don't discuss breast reconstruction options with women prior to cancer surgery, depriving them of key information that can impact whether to have an entire breast or just a lump removed. One-third of the 1,178 women in the study—surveyed three months after surgery from 2001 to 2003—said surgeons discussed cosmetic remedies with them in advance. Two-thirds said reconstruction never came up with general surgeons before surgery. Younger and more educated women were more likely to discuss reconstruction options. The question of who initiated the topic—patient or doctor—was not asked. Women who see breast specialists rather than general surgeons may be more apt to receive plastic surgery consultations. Dr. Sameer Patel, a reconstructive surgeon at the Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia, said some doctors are too focused on the medical part of the decision about what operation to have. "They're trying to take care of the cancer, and that (cosmetic impact) takes a back seat," he said.

When the topic was discussed, women were four times more likely to choose mastectomy, possibly because of the reconstruction options, which include implants not available for correcting defects left following lumpectomies; however, mastectomies can be a suspicious choice since breast-conserving lumpectomies generally suffice. When cancer has not widely spread, most women opt for lumpectomy; however, some patients need or prefer mastectomy. Breast cancer is the most common major cancer in American women with over 178,000 new cases expected this year in the U.S. and over 1 million worldwide.  "Our point is not to say that one decision is better than another, but that women need to know all their options," said Dr. Amy Alderman, the University of Michigan plastic surgeon who led the study. "There are positives and negatives to both. We shouldn't be paternalistic and tell patients, 'This is what you need.'" Dr. H. Kim Lyerly, a breast surgeon and director of Duke University's Comprehensive Cancer Center, agreed. The study is the second recent report to call attention to the often-neglected cosmetic consequences of cancer surgery. Studies at last week's San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium also discussed limited options for millions left with dimpled or cratered breasts following lumpectomies. Doctors say the latest study, conducted in over 100 hospitals in Detroit and Los Angeles, may overstate the doctor-patient communication problem, but acknowledge that one exists.

Debbie Horwitz encountered that attitude three years ago when she found a cancerous lump. Her mother died of breast cancer and her grandmother had the disease, so when tests showed she had a mutated gene raising her risk of future tumors, she had a double mastectomy. "I was really frustrated to find out there were no process pictures of what the reconstruction process would be like," she said. "It's a months-long process. There were a lot of before and after pictures, but there's a lot that happens in between. If you were going to take off somebody's arm, or a leg had to be amputated, you would talk to them about prosthetics. I don't understand how doctors can leave that part out."

Mammogram Accuracy Depends on Physician, Study Says

Thu, 13 Dec 2007 00:00:00 -0800

Mammograms are not always an effective way of diagnosing breast cancer, and the accuracy of a mammogram is highly dependent on the physician who reads it. A new three-state study led by Seattle's Group Health Cooperative revealed that even the most skilled radiologists fail to detect 20 percent of breast-cancer cases in diagnostic mammograms, which are conducted when cancer is suspected and when tumors would presumably be larger and easier to spot. This revelation strengthens concerns about relying on a mammogram, which experts have long said was an imprecise tool for detecting breast cancer, and confirms that women shouldn't automatically accept a mammogram result—whether negative or positive—as the final word.

Researchers examined nearly 36,000 mammograms read by 123 radiologists and found a woman's odds of receiving accurate results were dependent on who conducted the reading. In the worst cases, radiologists missed nearly 40 percent of the tumors and misidentified 8.3 percent of their patients as having nonexistent cancers. Top performers tended to be doctors at academic medical centers and breast imaging specialist. Even so, cancer went undetected in one of five women did have cancer and 2.6 percent received false-positive results. Those who spent at least 20 percent of their time on breast imaging caught 80 percent of cancers, compared with 70 percent for those with lesser focus—a difference researchers said is probably not due to chance. Affiliation with academic medical centers was the single greatest factor in successful cancer-detection rates; however, only seven of the 123 radiologists fit that criterion. Conversely, the sheer number of mammograms read did not meaningfully raise a radiologist's performance. The researchers suggested creating imaging centers staffed by radiologists who specialize in breast imaging.

Women are warned to not interpret the study as an indictment against mammograms in general since routine mammograms do reduce death rates from breast cancer—a disease that kills nearly 40,000 Americans yearly—among women over 50.

What remains unclear is the benefit to symptom-free younger women from screening. Regardless, women of any age receiving mammograms should request radiologists who only handle breast imaging.

The findings come as some health experts' opinions are diverging on the value of mammograms, particularly for younger women. In April, an influential physicians group came out against the wide practice of giving annual mammograms for women 40 to 49, saying women within that age group aren't at a uniform risk of cancer and the mammograms themselves could expose the women to harm through needless treatments because of a false cancer scare.

While mammography is not perfect, it is considered the best diagnostic tool in the detection of breast cancer. Traditional mammograms, taken with low-dose X-rays, are notoriously difficult to read. Benign and malignant lesions can look alike, a speck of tumor can be hard to discern from the surrounding breast tissue, and accurate readings rest largely on a radiologist skill.

The study's findings on diagnostic mammograms echo previous research on screening mammograms, which many women receive annually starting at age 40. Diagnostic mammograms, by contrast, are performed when a lump or something unusual is discovered in the breast. Of every 1,000 woman undergoing diagnostic mammograms, 44 will have cancer, compared with five women receiving screening mammograms.

Breast Cancer Could be Linked to Butyl Benzyl Phthalate Exposure Early in Life

Fri, 07 Dec 2007 00:00:00 -0800

Butyl benzyl phthalate (BBP), a common chemical found in plastics, could be associated with an increased risk of breast cancer. A new study of BBP finds that the chemical, which most people encounter every day of their lives, caused faster breast development and genetic changes in newborn female lab rats. Both early breast development and genetic changes in the makeup of breast tissue could predispose animals - and most likely humans as well - to breast cancer later in life.

BBP is commonly used to soften polymers and plastics, and is found in every household. BBP is used in the manufacture of vinyl floor tiles, carpets, plastic pipes, air fresheners, lipstick and a myriad of other everyday items. It has long been known that BBP and other phthalates are endocrine disruptors, meaning they can mimic the effect of hormones, which in turn can lead to significant changes in biological processes. Such substances have already been implicated in low sperm counts and neurological problems in humans.

This newest BBP study was conducted at the Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia. Researchers there fed lactating rats BBP, something that their offspring would have absorbed through their milk. The baby rats only received doses of BBP equal to that which is considered safe by the Environmental Protection Agency. Yet, the female offspring exhibited rapid breast development, and genetic changes in the makeup of their mammary glands. Altering breast development could lead to more cancer down the road, the researchers said. The Fox Chase BBP study is the first experiment to demonstrate that exposure to BBP in early life has the potential to alter breast development.

Dr. Jose Russo, who led the Fox Chase BBP breast cancer study, told medicinet.com that the new findings strongly suggest that BBP exposure needs to be limited. "To prevent breast cancer in adulthood, it is necessary to protect both the newborn child and the mother from exposure to this compound that has an estrogenic effect and could act as an endocrine disruptor," Russo said.

The results of the Fox Chase BBP study are only preliminary. Scientist there are also working to see how rats exposed to BBPs early in life respond to cancer causing chemicals once they are grown. They are also studying the effects of BBP exposure prior to birth, and are evaluating a group of girls to see if BBP exposure might have an affect on their development, including the speed of their breast development and the onset of their first menstrual period.

The Fox Chase study is not the only one that has suggested that phthalate exposure is detrimental to humans, and evidence is piling up that use of these chemicals should be curtailed. In March, a study published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives suggested that exposure to phthalates could be fueling the obesity epidemic by contributing to abdominal obesity and insulin resistance in men. Just this October, California passed a law that banned the use of BBPs in toys and other children's products.

Cancer Rates Higher in Night Shift Workers, Leads WHO to List Graveyard Shift as 'Probable' Carcinogen

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 00:00:00 -0800

Working the overnight shift has been linked to an increased risk of developing cancer. Though the association may seem a bit far fetched, research has found that men who work the overnight shift have higher rates of prostate cancer, while women have higher rates of breast cancer. The overnight shift - cancer link is strong enough that the International Agency for Research on Cancer, the cancer arm of the World Health Organization (WHO), recently added the graveyard shift to its list of probable carcinogens.

The night shift - cancer link was first brought to light in 1987, when Richard Stevens, a cancer epidemiologist and professor at the University of Connecticut Health Center, published a paper suggesting the connection. Stevens speculated that a sudden rise in breast cancer rates in the 1930s was somehow connected to the increased prevalence of night shift work brought on by industrialization. Most other scientists, however, scoffed at Stevens' assertions. But over the years, more and more research has pointed to a connection between overnight work and cancer rates. Also, lab animals that have their light and dark schedules switched have been shown to develop more tumors and die earlier.

Now, scientists think there might be a real biological basis for the night shift - cancer link. Working the night shift is dangerous because it disrupts the circadian rhythm - the "clock" that tells the body when to sleep and when to wake, and regulates other important biological processes. The hormone melatonin, which is vital to the suppression of tumors, is produced at night. Light shuts down melatonin production, so being exposed to artificial light in the evening could mean a melatonin deficiency. This could be one reason for the higher rates of cancer among night shift workers.

The balance between light and dark is very important to the body in other ways, and many of those processes could also play a role in determining a person's resistance to cancer. Not getting enough sleep - a common problem for night shift workers who often have other daytime responsibilities - weakens the immune system, making the body more vulnerable to an attack from cancer cells. Certain processes, like cell division and DNA repair can also be influenced by exposure to light and dark.

The WHO decision to call night shift work a probable carcinogen doesn't mean such work definitely causes cancer - just that the connection is plausible. Still, if the link between cancer and overnight work is verified, it could have vast implications. It would mean that millions of people who work the graveyard shift - including 20% of the people living in developing countries where healthcare is poor - are at a higher risk for cancer.

Not much is known about how frequency or length of time spent on the night shift affects cancer. Most studies involving the night shift - cancer link have been done either on lab animals, or with small groups of workers like nurses and airline crews. Much more work needs to be done to determine how serious the cancer risk is for people on the graveyard shift. It is hoped that the WHOs designation of night shift work as a probable carcinogen will spark some of that much needed research.

Hormones can raise breast cancer risk

Thu, 19 Apr 2007 00:00:00 -0700

Research on two continents signaled more bad news for menopause hormones, offering the strongest evidence yet that they can raise the risk of breast cancer and are tied to a slightly higher risk of ovarian cancer.

New U.S. government numbers showed that breast cancer rates leveled off in 2004 after plunging in 2003 the year after millions of women stopped taking hormones because a big study tied them to higher heart, stroke and breast cancer risks. Experts said the leveling off shows that the 2003 drop in the cancer rate was real and not a fluke.

From 2001 to 2004, breast cancer rates fell almost 9 percent a dramatic decline, researchers report in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine. The trend was even stronger for the most common form of the disease tumors whose growth is fueled by hormones. Those rates fell almost 15 percent among women ages 50 to 69, the group most likely to have been on hormone pills.

At the same time, a study of nearly 1 million women in the United Kingdom showed that those who took hormones after menopause were 20 percent more likely to develop ovarian cancer or die from it than women who never took the pills. That study was published online by the London-based journal The Lancet.

For consumers, the new research doesn't change the advice to use the lowest dose for the shortest time possible for hot flashes and other menopause symptoms that can't otherwise be controlled.

For cautious scientists, the new breast cancer numbers were more evidence of the hormone-breast cancer link.

"The story has gotten stronger," said Dr. Peter Ravdin, a biostatistician at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston who led the research.

Some were skeptical several months ago when Ravdin and National Cancer Institute researchers first reported the 2003 drop in the breast cancer rate. The new numbers, which add 2004, prove this was no fluke, said Dr. Julie Gralow, a spokeswoman for the American Society of Clinical Oncology and cancer expert at the University of Washington in Seattle.

"Because it didn't bump back up again," it supports the idea that the rate has stabilized at a new lower level, said Gralow, who had no role in the study.

Brenda Edwards, one of the journal authors who is a National Cancer Institute researcher, agreed. "Now we have a statistically significant decline" over three years and clear proof of a trend, she said.

Although some recent analyses suggest heart risks from menopause hormones are not as great as had been believed for younger, newly menopausal women, the statistics out this week add to the worries about cancer.

After rising steadily through the 1990s, the breast cancer rate dipped from 2001 to 2002, from 138 cases to 135 cases per 100,000 women. After the federal Women's Health Initiative study reported in July 2002 on the health risks of hormones, use of the pills plunged.

So did the breast cancer rate the following year to 126 cases per 100,000 women. It was the steepest fall since the government started keeping records in the 1970s.

The drop was seen in all of the cancer statistics registries reviewed in the study, and no other cancer rate changed as dramatically strong signs that hormones were playing a role, specialists said.

The 2004 rate held steady at about 126 cases per 100,000.

Stopping hormone use may have stopped some cancers from growing and caused them to disappear, scientists speculate. Or it may have just slowed them down so that they won't appear until years later, said Ahmedin Jemal, an American Cancer Society researcher. Only time will tell which is true, he said.

Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, which makes top-selling hormone pills Prempro and Premarin, criticized the study as overly speculative. Company spokesman Dr. Joseph Camardo said hormone prescriptions continued to fall in 2004 but breast cancer rates did not decline proportionately.

Ravdin said the company's criticism does not invalidate the cancer trends.

Breast cancer is the most common major cancer in American women and the second leading cause of cancer deaths in women. About 180,000 new cases are expected to occur in the United States this year and more than 1 million worldwide.

Ovarian cancer is far less common. The British study found that even with the 20 percent greater risk from hormones, the actual risk was very low: 2.6 of every 1,000 hormone users developed ovarian cancer over five years compared to 2.2 in 1,000 non-hormone users.

Still, that means about 1,000 extra ovarian cancer deaths from 1991 through 2005, said study leaders at the Cancer Research UK Epidemiology Unit in Oxford.

Hormone use has declined already, and the new report should cause it to fall further, Dr. Steven Narod of the University of Toronto wrote in an editorial accompanying the study in The Lancet.

"We hope that the number of women dying of ovarian cancer will decline as well," he wrote.

Camardo, Wyeth's spokesman, said hormone labels already warn about an elevated risk of ovarian cancer.

US drop in breast cancer linked to reduced hormone use

Wed, 18 Apr 2007 00:00:00 -0700

A sharp decline in breast cancer rates in the United States in 2003 could be linked to a reduction in the use of hormone replacement therapy, according to research published Wednesday.

The research, based on data from the National Cancer Institute, shows that the breast cancer incidence rates in women in the United States fell 6.7 percent in 2003 from the previous year and have since stabilized.

The drop corresponds with a rapid decline in prescriptions for hormone replacement therapy (HRT) at the time following headline-grabbing reports that post-menopausal women who were using HRT that included both estrogen and progestin showed increased risks of breast cancer, heart disease and stroke.

The number of prescriptions written for the two most commonly prescribed forms of HRT in the United States plunged from 61 million in 2001 to 21 million in 2004, the study's authors reported in the April 19 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

According to the research team led by Donald Berry of the University of Texas, the decline in breast cancer incidence began in mid-2002 and leveled off after 2003.

The researchers, comparing breast cancer rates from 2001 and 2004, found a decrease in annual incidence of 8.6 percent.

The decrease only occurred in women over 50 and were more pronounced in women with cancerous tumors that were dependent on estrogen to grow and multiply, they said.

Of other risk factors the researchers considered including rates of mammography screening and changes in diet HRT was the only risk factor that changed markedly from 2002 to 2003 "and provides a possible explanation for this trend," the National Cancer Institute said in a statement.

"The speed at which breast cancer rates declined after the Women's Health Iniatiative announcements may indicate that extremely small ER-positive breast cancers may have stopped progressing, or even regressed after HRT was stopped," the institute, a part of the National Institutes of Health, said.

The head of the institute, John Niederhuber, recalled that breast cancer is the most frequently diagnosed cancer among women in the United States but all its causes remain unknown.

"Breast cancer rates had been increasing for two decades up to 2002. Finding the simple ways, such as limiting HRT use to decrease breast cancer risk, is a step forward," Niederhuber said in the statement.

Study: Big Pharma Influences Breast Cancer Research Results

Mon, 26 Feb 2007 00:00:00 -0800

In an enlightening and alarming new study, researchers led by Dr. Jeffrey Peppercorn of the University of North Carolina report that clinical breast-cancer trials that are funded by drug companies tend to produce more favorable results than independently funded studies. According to the authors, “Pharmaceutical involvement in published clinical breast-cancer research may affect study design, focus, and results.” The findings of the report, already available online, will be published in the April 1 edition of Cancer, the journal of the American Cancer Society (ACS).

“Breast cancer treatment trials supported by the pharmaceutical industry are more likely to report positive results than non-sponsored studies,” notes the ACS. “In addition, there are significant differences in the design of trials and types of questions addressed by pharmaceutical industry sponsored trials compared to non-sponsored trials. The study is the first to examine the impact of the pharmaceutical industry on breast cancer research.”

The authors of the new report reviewed 140 studies of breast-cancer therapy results in various journals at five-year intervals during the past decade. Of the 140 studies, 67 (48 percent) had some type of drug-company involvement, whether it be co-authorship, supply of the drug, or financial support. They also found that drug-company participation increased from 44 percent in 1993 to 58 percent in 2003.

The authors claim that there are “statistically significant differences” between industry-supported studies and independent ones. Not only were industry-supported studies more likely to report positive results (in favor of the experimental therapy), but these studies were also more likely to have “single-arm” designs, with no control groups. The authors also say that industry-sponsored studies fail to address questions about dosing, duration of treatment, and patient identification (ie. which patients are best-suited to the therapy).

For the most recent study year, 2003, the authors report that studies with pharmaceutical involvement were more likely to be positive (84 percent vs. 54 percent), to be single-arm studies (66 percent vs. 33 percent), and to evaluate metastatic (advanced-stage) disease (72 percent vs. 46 percent).

“Research and development (R&D) is critical to developing new therapies,” explains the ACS. “The drug industry is a significant contributor to this effort, now with far greater spending than the United States’ National Institutes of Health. As collaboration between the for-profit drug industry and academic medical centers has increased, so too have concerns over the potential impact of for-profit sponsorship on the nature and quality of the research and the potential for conflicts of interest. Several studies in other areas of medicine have suggested that pharmaceutical sponsorship leads to a greater chance that a clinical trial will yield positive results.”

“Breast cancer treatment trials supported by the pharmaceutical industry are more likely to report positive results than non-sponsored studies,” notes the ACS. “In addition, there are significant differences in the design of trials and types of questions addressed by pharmaceutical industry sponsored trials compared to non-sponsored trials. The study is the first to examine the impact of the pharmaceutical industry on breast cancer research.”

The authors of the new report reviewed 140 studies of breast-cancer therapy results in various journals at five-year intervals during the past decade. Of the 140 studies, 67 (48 percent) had some type of drug-company involvement, whether it be co-authorship, supply of the drug, or financial support. They also found that drug-company participation increased from 44 percent in 1993 to 58 percent in 2003.

The authors claim that there are “statistically significant differences” between industry-supported studies and independent ones. Not only were industry-supported studies more likely to report positive results (in favor of the experimental therapy), but these studies were also more likely to have “single-arm” designs, with no control groups. The authors also say that industry-sponsored studies fail to address questions about dosing, duration of treatment, and patient identification (ie. which patients are best-suited to the therapy).

For the most recent study year, 2003, the authors report that studies with pharmaceutical involvement were more likely to be positive (84 percent vs. 54 percent), to be single-arm studies (66 percent vs. 33 percent), and to evaluate metastatic (advanced-stage) disease (72 percent vs. 46 percent).

“Research and development (R&D) is critical to developing new therapies,” explains the ACS. “The drug industry is a significant contributor to this effort, now with far greater spending than the United States’ National Institutes of Health. As collaboration between the for-profit drug industry and academic medical centers has increased, so too have concerns over the potential impact of for-profit sponsorship on the nature and quality of the research and the potential for conflicts of interest. Several studies in other areas of medicine have suggested that pharmaceutical sponsorship leads to a greater chance that a clinical trial will yield positive results.”

Woman wins $3 million verdict in case over Prempro link to cancer

Tue, 20 Feb 2007 00:00:00 -0800

Jennie Nelson, 67, of Dayton, was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2001 after taking Prempro for five years to treat symptoms of menopause. Her lawyers said Wyeth knew for decades the drug could cause breast cancer, but failed to warn patients.

More than 5,000 women have sued New Jersey-based Wyeth over its hormone drugs Premarin and Prempro. Wyeth has won two cases and lost two cases, which have been heard in Arkansas and Philadelphia.

Both drugs remain on the market and carry the approval of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and both continue to be prescribed annually to hundreds of thousands of menopausal women.

But the lawsuits pending against Wyeth accuse the company of minimizing the drugs' risks.

Wyeth said it would appeal Tuesday's ruling. It maintains that it is impossible to prove that Prempro caused individual cancer cases.

"We respectfully disagree that there is any scientific basis to support the jury's finding of a causal link between Wyeth's hormone therapies and the plaintiff's breast cancer," Wyeth's attorney, Barbara R. Binis, said in a statement.

Nelson originally won a $1.5 million jury award in the fall, but a judge declared a mistrial. The second trial began Jan. 11.

"The jurors in this case understood how important it was to evaluate all of the evidence, and to let Wyeth know that dangerous products need adequate warnings," Nelson's lawyer, said in a statement.

Wyeth Loses Another Prempro Case

Tue, 20 Feb 2007 00:00:00 -0800

An Ohio woman was awarded a $3 million verdict by a jury in Pennsylvania state court, which held that her use of Wyeth’s menopause drug, Prempro, led to her breast cancer. It was the second verdict against Wyeth and Prempro in the past month, and roughly 5,000 individual suits are still pending against the company and its hormone replacement drugs Prempro and Premarin.

Jennie Nelson was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2001, six years after she began taking Prempro. She’d won a $1.5 million verdict last fall in the case, but a judge declared a mistrial over concerns of juror misconduct. The new verdict doubled her award, offering $2.4 million in damages to her, plus an additional $600,000 to her husband. The jury found that Wyeth’s product warnings were inadequate and vague and that her use of the hormone replacement therapy (HRT) had a direct effect on her development of invasive breast cancer.

“We are very grateful to the members of the jury who carefully considered the facts in Mrs. Nelson’s case,” said plaintiff attorney Tobias Millrood. “We also find it especially rewarding that two separate juries have believed in the merits of the case and found for Mrs. Nelson. Both times this case has been heard on terms established by Wyeth, and still the juries have clearly found that Prempro causes breast cancer.”

Last month, the pharmaceutical giant was ordered by another Pennsylvania state jury to pay $1.5 million in compensatory damages to an Arkansas woman, Mary Daniel, and her husband who held Prempro responsible for the woman’s breast cancer. In that case, the jury cited conduct by Wyeth that was “malicious, wanton, willful, or oppressive, or showed reckless indifference.” Her attorneys argued that Wyeth had known for decades about Prempro’s breast-cancer risk factor in postmenopausal women, but acted negligently by failing to provide adequate warnings or conduct sufficient testing.

In 2002, a Women’s Health Initiative study sponsored by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) found that the use of an estrogen-progestin combination (like Prempro) led to a 41 percent increase in strokes, a 29 percent increase in heart attacks, a doubling of rates of blood clots, a 22 percent increase in total cardiovascular disease, and a 26 percent increase in breast cancer. Wyeth is still allowed to sell the drugs, and sales of its HRTs topped $1 billion last year.

Added Millrood, “The evidence presented at trial revealed that Wyeth has known for decades that postmenopausal hormone therapy causes breast cancer but that Wyeth chose to avoid testing this dangerous hormone combination and delayed stronger warnings for fear of flagging sales. We hope that this verdict sends a clear message to Wyeth

Breast Cancer Test Cleared by the FDA

Wed, 07 Feb 2007 00:00:00 -0800

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced today that it is authorizing the marketing of a test to determine the probability of recurring breast cancer. The decision is significant because the breast-cancer test is the first molecular test approved by the FDA that profiles genetic activity.

According to the FDA, “The MammaPrint test uses the latest in molecular technology to predict whether existing cancer will metastasize (spread to other parts of a patient’s body). The test relies on microarray analysis, a powerful tool for simultaneously studying the patterns of behavior of large numbers of genes in biological specimens. The recurrence of cancer is partly dependent on the activation and suppression of certain genes located in the tumor. Prognostic tests like the MammaPrint can measure the activity of these genes, and thus help physicians understand their patients’ odds of the cancer spreading.”

MammaPrint was developed by Amsterdam’s Agendia laboratory and has been sold in the Netherlands since 2005.

“Clearance of the MammaPrint test marks a step forward in the initiative to bring molecular-based medicine into current practice,” said Dr. Andrew C. von Eschenbach, FDA commissioner. “MammaPrint results will provide patients and physicians with more information about the prospects for the outcome of the disease. This information will support treatment decisions.”

In support of its decision, the agency noted that “Agendia submitted data from a study using tumor samples and clinical data from 302 patients at five European centers. These studies confirmed that the test was useful in predicting time to distant metastasis in women who are under age 61 and in the two earliest stages of the disease (Stage I and Stage II) and who have tumor size equal to or less than five centimeters and no evidence that the cancer has spread to nearby lymph nodes (lymph node negative).”

The FDA says that nearly 180,000 women will be diagnosed with invasive breast cancer this year and that about 40,000 women will die from the disease.

Wyeth Loses Prempro Suit

Wed, 31 Jan 2007 00:00:00 -0800

Pharmaceutical giant Wyeth was ordered by a Pennsylvania state jury to pay $1.5 million in compensatory damages to an Arkansas woman and her husband who held the company’s hormone replacement therapy (HRT) drug Prempro responsible for the woman’s breast cancer. Citing conduct by Wyeth that was “malicious, wanton, willful, or oppressive, or showed reckless indifference,” the jury has also begun deliberating on possible punitive damages to be tacked on. However, Judge Myrna Field ruled Tuesday that the company should not be held responsible for punitive damages a decision that may be overturned in the appeals process.

Mary Daniel, 60, of Hot Springs, Arkansas, began taking Prempro, a drug that combines estrogen and progestin, to treat the symptoms of menopause. Daniel started her therapy in late 1999 and was diagnosed with breast cancer in July of 2001. Her attorneys argued that Wyeth had known for decades about Prempro’s breast-cancer risk factor in postmenopausal women, but acted negligently by failing to provide adequate warnings or conduct sufficient testing.

Last week, in a separate Prempro trial underway in Little Rock, Arkansas, Wyeth chairman and CEO Robert Essner delivered a videotaped deposition in which he said the company was “concerned” about the breast-cancer risks associated with Prempro as far back as 1991. Wyeth is facing more than 5,000 lawsuits with regard to Prempro and its other HRT drug, Premarin. This is the third Prempro trial to reach a verdict. In one trial, an Arkansas woman’s case was dismissed by the jury; in the second, a Pennsylvania couple was initially awarded a $1.5 million jury judgment before a mistrial was declared in October. (A new trial is in progress in Philadelphia.)

Although the company may have known about the risks of Prempro as early as 1991, it wasn’t until 2002 that the drug’s safety issues became widely known. A 2002 Women’s Health Initiative study sponsored by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) found that the use of an estrogen-progestin combination led to a 41 percent increase in strokes, a 29 percent increase in heart attacks, a doubling of rates of blood clots, a 22 percent increase in total cardiovascular disease, and a 26 percent increase in breast cancer.

“Wyeth has known for decades that postmenopausal drugs cause breast cancer but the company deliberately failed to do studies to understand or quantify that risk,” plaintiff lawyer Zoe Littlepage said in a statement. “Wyeth protected their bottom dollar instead of protecting the patients.”

In related news, Wyeth today announced a fourth-quarter profit of $855 million on $5.22 billion in sales. For the year, they are expected to generate roughly $21.6 billion in revenue, with gross margins above 70 percent.

Reduced Use of Prempro and Other Hormone Replacement Drugs Linked to Lower Breast Cancer Rates

Thu, 14 Dec 2006 00:00:00 -0800

Breast cancer rates in the United States dropped 7.2 %, dramatically reversing previous trends which consistently showed rising rates. While the turnaround is surprising news to most, it does not surprise critics of hormone replacement drugs. In 2003, a large federal study linked HRT drugs like Prempro and Premarin, to an increased risk of breast cancer. Within months, millions of women stopped taking estrogen and progestin pills.

Medical researchers has exected about 200,000 cases of breast cancer in 2003; but only 14,000 were actually diagnosed with the disease. Because breast cancer takes years to form, experts think that withdrawing hormones mostly caused small tumors that had been growing to stop or shrink, making them no longer detectable on mammograms. Whether this is true or will result in fewer cases over the long run will take more time to tell.

Cases declined most among women 50 and older, with tumors whose growth is fueled by estrogen the age group and type of cancer most affected by hormone use. Researchers looked for a similar drop in other cancers, which could indicate something other than hormones was at work, “and we didn’t see anything,” said Kathy Cronin, a National Cancer Institute statistician who worked on the analysis.

Doctors estimate that half of women who were taking hormones stopped after July 2002, when the federal Women’s Health Initiative study was halted because more women taking estrogen/progestin pills developed breast cancer or heart problems.

Smoking link possible in breast cancer

Thu, 31 Aug 2006 00:00:00 -0700

Cigarette smoke could be a cause of breast cancer after all, University of Florida researchers recently reported in a cellular cancer journal called Oncogene.

Breast cancer is one of the few cancers in which a link to smoking has never been clearly established, and researchers believe their findings could be important in helping to understand why more than 220,000 cases of the disease are diagnosed each year in the U.S.

The UF study differs in one key aspect from previous studies that have not found a clear link between smoking and breast cancer: The researchers used condensate from actual tobacco smoke, in which normal breast cells were exposed to the full range of the 4,000 chemicals in tobacco smoke and not just a few of its known toxins, and injected it into laboratory mice.

"It is very significant from a health point of view that in a single puff, you are taking in 4,000 chemicals, and we don't know what they are going to do, where they're going," said Dr. Satya Narayan, an associate professor of anatomy and cell biology at UF's College of Medicine.

Toxins from cigarette smoke already have been implicated in more than 30 cancers, most notably lung cancer, the biggest cancer killer in the country. Smoking also has been linked to other major cancer killers, including cancer of the stomach, esophagus and colon. Many researchers over the years have tried, but failed, to determine whether a link exists between smoking and breast cancer, which claims 40,000 lives in the U.S. each year.

"It's actually been one of the cancers that has been shown not to increase with smoking," said Dr. Ruth O'Regan, director of Translational Breast Cancer Research at the Winship Cancer Institute at Emory University. Population studies that compare women with breast cancer to those who do not have the disease have not shown that women smokers are more likely to develop the disease, O'Regan said.

Still, O'Regan cautioned that the study may reveal more about the mechanism of how breast cancer starts rather than what is causing it.

Narayan's study was funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Flight Attendant Medical Research Institute, based in Miami.

Daughters face DES drug cancer risk

Mon, 07 Aug 2006 00:00:00 -0700

The daughters of women who took the common pregnancy drug DES (diethylstilboestrol) face an increased risk of developing breast cancer, researchers in the United States have found.

The drug, prescribed to women until 1975 to protect against miscarriage and combat morning sickness, has already been found to have increased the risk of breast cancer in mothers who took it.

But now it appears the legacy has been passed onto their daughters - with the dangers increasing as they approach menopause, the Daily Mail reported.

According to the newspaper, scientists at Boston University said women whose mothers took DES had a 40% increased risk of breast cancer. The danger posed by DES increased with age.

The researchers also said that the greater the amount of the drug taken by the mother the more likely the daughter would develop the cancer.

The scientists compared rates of the disease in 4,000 daughters of those who took DES and 2,000 who had not taken the drug.

Lead researcher Professor Julie Palmer said: "This is really unwelcome news because so many women worldwide were prenatally exposed to DES and they are just now approaching the age at which breast cancer becomes more common." She said those who were exposed to DES should be screened regularly for breast cancer.

DES was withdrawn after children suffered disorders of the reproductive system, including cancers of the vagina and low sperm counts and increased risk of testicular cancer in men.

Heather Justice, of DES Action UK told the Daily Mail: "We've known since the seventies about the risk of vaginal cancer, and now as these women are getting to the menopause and there are hormonal changes, we are seeing breast cancers starting to emerge."

She added: "People should be asking their mothers whether they can remember being prescribed it during their pregnancy, then insisting on proper screening and care."

Long-term estrogen users face increased breast cancer risk, study finds

Tue, 09 May 2006 00:00:00 -0700

Women who take an estrogen hormone supplement longer than 15 years are at a significantly increased risk of developing breast cancer, according to a long-term study of nurses' health published Monday.

But the research, reported in the Archives of Internal Medicine, found no increased risk of breast cancer in women who had taken estrogen for less than 10 years.

"This says, at least for the shorter-term users, you don't need to panic," said Dr. Wendy Chen, an oncologist and epidemiologist at Brigham and Women's Hospital and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, who led the study. "But for the longer-term users, you need to think about why am I still taking estrogen for this long of time, and are there alternatives?"

Just last month, researchers in another long-term study, the Women's Health Initiative, published results of a seven-year study that found no increased risk of breast cancer in women who took the hormone, but there were other significant health risks, such as strokes and blood clots.

Estrogen-alone supplements are given only to women who have had their uteruses removed, because the hormone has been linked to an increased risk of uterine cancer. A woman with an intact uterus can take estrogen combined with progestin, another hormone that seems to prevent women from getting uterine cancer.

The latest study involved more than 28,000 women who were part of the Nurses' Health Study conducted by researchers at two Harvard-affiliated hospitals in Massachusetts.

For women who had been on estrogen for at least 15 years, the risk of hormone-responsive breast cancer the most common type in the United States climbed 48 percent. At 20 years, the risk of all types of breast cancer rose 42 percent.

Of the 934 invasive breast cancers that developed over the duration of the study, 708 were in women taking estrogen at the time, the study showed. Among the women who never used hormones, 226 developed breast cancer.

The risk of breast cancer also appeared to rise between 10 and 15 years of use, but the increase was not statistically significant, the researchers said.

"This is exactly what I would have expected," said Dr. Stefan Glück, clinical director of the Braman Family Breast Cancer Institute at the University of Miami's Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center. "Look at smoking. After two years, there's no increase [in cancers]. You need many, many years [of exposure] to cause damage. Biology is a continuum, so starting 10, 15, 20 years is when you see an effect."

Before the Women's Health Initiative, doctors routinely prescribed hormone supplements at menopause. The prevailing theory was that estrogen or estrogen with progestin would prevent heart disease and other vagaries of aging. Instead, the study found an increased risk of heart disease, dementia, stroke, blood clots and other serious illnesses. More than 161,000 women participated, including 3,000 in South Florida.

Glück said the body of evidence on hormone replacement is sufficient for women and their doctors to make good choices.

"There are so many studies now, the picture is getting clearer," he said. He recommended that women whose menopausal symptoms are not severe not take any hormone supplements, and those with severe symptoms should take them for a short time and then taper off them gradually so the body has time to adjust.

"Women who are overweight or obese when they go through menopause or have a hysterectomy tend to suffer more hot flashes, night sweats, and other menopausal symptoms than thin women, he said.

"In Asia, in Japan, there is not even a word for menopause," Glück said. "Maybe it's the healthier diet, lifestyle, the green tea. We don't know."

Lifestyle changes can help to ease some of the symptoms of American women, he said.

"Go to the beach and swim, golf more, go to the gym, eat healthier food. These are all things that help, but occasionally they are not enough," Glück said. "If a woman really suffers so much, [she can take] these drugs for awhile, then taper them off."

Long-term estrogen use raises risk, study finds

Tue, 09 May 2006 00:00:00 -0700

Study Links Estrogen, Breast Cancer Risk

Mon, 08 May 2006 00:00:00 -0700

Women who take estrogen-only pills for at least 15 years run a markedly higher risk of developing breast cancer, according to a study of nearly 29,000 nurses. But no increased danger was found among those who took the hormone for less than 10 years.

Researchers said the findings should be reassuring for women who want to use estrogen for a short time to relieve menopausal symptoms such as hot flashes and vaginal dryness.

Hormone supplements were once thought to help postmenopausal women postpone age-related ills. But the government's Women's Health Initiative study in 2002 contradicted those beliefs for estrogen-progestin supplements, finding an increased risk of breast cancer, strokes and heart attacks. That led millions of American women to stop taking supplements.

Later, a WHI study of estrogen alone an option only for women who have had a hysterectomy linked the supplements to strokes and memory problems. But it found that using estrogen alone for seven years does not raise the risk of breast cancer.

The new findings came from the less-rigorous but longer-running Nurses' Health Study, overseen by Harvard-affiliated researchers.

It found no increased risk of breast cancer in women who had taken estrogen for less than 10 years. But for women who had been on estrogen for at least 15 years, the risk of hormonally driven breast cancer (the most common type in the United States) climbed 48 percent. At the 20-year mark, the risk of any type of breast cancer rose 42 percent.

"This says at least for the shorter-term users, you don't need to panic" about breast cancer, said lead author Dr. Wendy Chen, an oncologist and epidemiologist at Brigham and Women's Hospital and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. "But for the longer-term users, you need to think about why am I still taking estrogen for this long of time, and are there are alternatives I could take instead?"

The risk of breast cancer also appeared to rise between 10 and 15 years of use, but the increase was not statistically significant, the researchers said.

The study, published in Monday's Archives of Internal Medicine, involved 28,835 women who were postmenopausal, had had a hysterectomy and reported their estrogen use every two years. Just 3.2 percent of the women, or 934, developed breast cancer during the study.

The researchers said it is unclear how many American women are taking estrogen for 15 or 20 years, especially in light of the WHI findings and doctors' recommendation since then that women who want to use the pills take them for the shortest possible duration.

Dr. Carolyn D. Runowicz, president of the American Cancer Society, said a few women in her practice have chosen to remain on estrogen for a long time because they feel the improvement in their quality of life outweighs the risks.

Runowicz called the study reassuring for short-term estrogen use but also said it underscores the need for patients to regularly "justify every medication" they take with their doctors.

"Is it estrogen forever? That's what we thought in the 1970s," said Runowicz, director of the Cancer Center at the University of Connecticut Health Center, "but we've completely reversed our thinking on that."

Estrogen-alone supplements are given only to women who have had their uteruses removed, because the hormone can spur uterine cancer. Other women get estrogen plus progestin, to counteract the risk of uterine cancer.

The Women's Health Initiative was a clinical trial in which women were randomly assigned estrogen pills or placebos. Scientists consider that approach the gold standard. The new study relied on nurses who reported on their own health every two years.

Runowicz said nurses could differ somewhat from women in the general population perhaps they are healthier, for instance but she said she had no reason to doubt the validity of the data, especially because its conclusions regarding short-term estrogen use are backed up the WHI findings.

Wyeth, which produces the estrogen pill Premarin, considers the Nurse's Health Study a well-respected study and the most recent research a "fairly reasonable trial," said Dr. James Pickar, assistant vice president for clinical research and development.

Pickar said he sees the results as good news for women because they back up the WHI findings that found no increased breast cancer risk for short-term estrogen users.

"I think it's very important for women to talk to their physician and review on a regular basis whether they need to continue therapy," Pickar said. "Each patient has an individual risk profile that only they and their physician can evaluate."

Study Claims Alcohol Raises Breast Cancer Risk in Women on HRT

Fri, 04 Nov 2005 00:00:00 -0800

According to research from Sweden’s Karolinska Institutet, women taking hormone replacement therapy (HRT) who drink alcohol are at an increased risk for breast cancer.

Results of the study, which was published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, indicate an elevated risk for estrogen receptor positive breast cancer, the most common kind, but not for the less frequent estrogen receptor negative type.

The study was conducted by Professor Alicja Wolk and her colleagues and reviewed records on alcohol consumption collected from 1987 to 1990 and in 1997. The data was taken from 51,847 postmenopausal women. By the middle of 2004, 1,188 breast cancer cases were reported.

According to Wolk, the findings indicate a combination of HRT and alcohol increases breast cancer risk. She advised that "for those women who have to take hormones, what they can do is avoid alcohol so it will not have a multiplier effect on the risk for cancer."

Increasingly, women have become wary about HRT after reports in 2002 and earlier this year that claimed it could have serious negative side effects including elevated risk of heart attack, stroke, and breast cancer.
Currently, breast cancer is the most common cancer in women worldwide with more than a million cases diagnosed - and 400,000 deaths - each year.

Many factors beside alcohol and HRT can contribute to increased risk. Women with a family history of breast cancer, an early puberty, late menopause, obesity, and not having children may also be at increased risk of developing breast cancer.

Study Finds Women Who Work at Night Are At Significantly Higher Risk of Developing Breast Cancer

Mon, 22 Aug 2005 00:00:00 -0700

According to a Harvard University and Brigham and Women's Hospital study, women who regularly work at night may have as much as a 50% increased risk of breast cancer.

The study suggests it cause may be due to their greater exposure to artificial light, which increases the female hormone estrogen.

Harvard doctors analyzed data on more than 10,000 women, including several hundred airline cabin staff, and determined that night workers were 1.5 times more likely to get cancer than those who worked during the day.

The results of the study appear in the European Journal of Cancer and are supported by earlier research connecting cancer to sleeping with the light on and suggesting the negative impact of night shifts and frequently fluctuating between day and night shifts.

The likely explanation for the increased cancer risk involves the hormones melatonin and estrogen. Melatonin is normally released into the body at night to regulate sleep patterns.

Maintaining normal melatonin levels at night has been shown to be beneficial. In previous research women with high levels of melatonin in the morning were found to be at lower risk of breast cancer.

When working night shifts interferes with normal melatonin “possibly through exposure to artificial light " the ovaries produce more estrogen. This excess of estrogen can cause the development of breast tumors.

Currently many businesses, including call centers, tech-support services as well as the retail, entertainment, and fast-food industries require the employment of millions of night shift workers.

Working nights has been shown to increases the risk of heart disease, depression, and other types of cancer and according to one study, is more damaging than smoking 20 cigarettes a day.

Specialized Breath Tests Will Aid in the Detection of a Number of Diseases

Sun, 21 Aug 2005 00:00:00 -0700

A new, highly sensitive breath test promises to provide doctors with a new diagnostic tool to help spot several diseases and to identify if a patient is rejecting an organ transplant.

If this test is adopted it could make determining diseases easier and provide an alternative to more costly or complicated diagnostic tests.

The test was developed by Dr. Michael Phillips who anticipates it will soon be able to help detect a variety of diseases including lung cancer, breast cancer, kidney disease, and diabetes.

The test may also be able to identify the signals of transplant rejection thereby reducing the number of biopsies these patients must undergo.
Phillips is currently seeking to license a company to produce and market his Heartsbreath test to doctors and hospitals.

He explained that analyzing breath, especially for diabetic patients, is an ancient practice and that his machinery, which can identify 200 compounds, is about billion times stronger at sensing a substance than the police Breathalyzer that measures alcohol level.

According to Phillips, the technology works because every illness generates an abundance of free radicals which oxidize cell membranes and release distinct compounds. Thus, every one has its own identifiable "fingerprint."

The software Phillips has designed will be able to isolate this fingerprint using a gas chromatograph and mass spectrometer, two common pieces of analytical laboratory equipment.

During the test the patient puts on a nose clip and breathes into a tube for two minutes. The sample is captured in a 4-inch steel tube the width of a pencil, which is stuffed with absorbent material. The contents, along with those of another tube that has collected air from around the patient, are compared by the chromatograph and spectrometer.

The Heartsbreath test was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2004 after federally sponsored clinical trials. It is a less invasive procedure for the 2,000 patients a year who have heart transplants. These patients often require as many as 20 biopsies, sometimes costing as much as $2,500, in the first year after surgery.

Along with traditional blood tests and other diagnostic tools, Heartsbreath could become a reliable means of identifying signs of organ rejection in these individuals.

Study Suggests Link between Childhood Consumption of French Fries and Increased Risk of Breast Cancer in Adulthood

Fri, 19 Aug 2005 00:00:00 -0700

A study in the online edition of the International Journal of Cancer indicates that preschool girls who ate French fries on a regular basis exhibited an increased risk of developing breast cancer as adults.

The research focused on a health study of 582 nurses who had breast cancer and more than 1,500 who did not have the disease in 1993. Their mothers were asked how often the nurses had eaten 30 different foods as preschoolers.

The results showed that French fries were the only food that appeared to have an impact on breast cancer risk. Cheese, butter, eggs, ground beef, and cookies were found to have no adverse effects, while whole milk appeared to slightly lower the risk of breast cancer.

Karin Michels, ScD, PhD, an associate professor of epidemiology at Harvard Medical School and Boston's Brigham and Women's Hospital, and her team concluded that for every additional weekly serving of French fries as preschoolers, the women’s risk of breast cancer as adults rose another 27%.

Michels claims the study is one of the first, if not the first, of its kind to look at the association between adult breast cancer risk and preschool diets.

Early diet is a concern for breast cancer later in life because cancer can take decades to develop and breast tissue is more vulnerable to harmful agents at a young age.

The results of the study, while interesting, should be viewed critically, however, as the methodology had some significant limitations.

Obviously, the French fries were not tested for any cancer-causing properties. Moreover, the mothers who were interviewed were often quite old (60, 70, or even 80 and older) and may not have remembered accurately what their children had eaten on a regular basis so many years ago.

Furthermore, the mothers of those nurses with cancer may not have been able to be objective about the possible dietary conditions that caused it.

Michels acknowledges that the conclusions are preliminary and that she doesn't know why French fries appear to have increased the risk of developing breast cancer while other foods did not.

It is possible that the saturated fats or trans fatty acids used to make French fries could have been the culprit but the preparation of the food changed over the forty years the study covered.

Older women may have eaten fries baked at home in lard, which is rich in saturated fats, while others may have eaten fast-food fries cooked in oils high in trans fatty acids.

Likewise, the apparent positive benefits of whole milk may not be reliable since milk now has higher concentrations of hormones.

Nevertheless, Michels believes the study demonstrates an undeniable association of early dietary patterns and later health consequences and underscores the importance of making sure children have a healthy diet in order to lower the risk of many diseases including obesity, heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, and possibly even cancer as adults.

I think this is just one more item that adds to the concern that parents should have about their child's diet," she continues. "We already have a lot of concerns about children's diets, given the obesity epidemic among children and the other chronic health outcomes."

According to Michels: "Parents have a particularly important role to ensure that their children have a healthy diet. There are plenty of reasons to watch children's diets so that they grow into healthy adults and we are not raising a generation of children that then have a variety of chronic diseases, three, four, or five decades down the line.:

Researchers in UK Identify New Genes Likely To Be Involved In Development of Breast Cancer

Thu, 04 Aug 2005 00:00:00 -0700

In a potential breakthrough in breast cancer research, scientists at the University of Cambridge (UK) have announced the identification of four new genes that are likely to be involved in the development of breast cancer.

Breast cancer most frequently results from long-term damage to a woman’s genes over the course of a lifetime. In some cases, however, mutations to genes called BRAC 1 and BRAC 2 can be inherited and cause the development of breast and ovarian cancer.

Professor Carlos Caldas, who headed the study, explained that recent DNA technology enables scientists to pinpoint the specific genes which cause breast cancer. To examine tissue from 53 breast cancer tumors and cells grown in the laboratory, the team relied on DNA microarray technology which enabled them to compare many genes simultaneously and to spot the breast cancer gene.

The preliminary results indicate that tumors with multiple copies of the breast-cancer genes are more aggressive.
Professor Caldas was excited about the findings, published in the journal Oncogene, since they may help to develop new targeted cancer therapies. "Hopefully this cutting edge technology will trigger a parallel increase in the speed at which new cancer treatments reach the patient."

According to International Agency for Research on Cancer in Lyon, France, breast cancer is one of the most common cancers for women throughout the world, with more than a million new cases occurring each year.

NEW STUDY IS FIRST TO SUGGEST LINK BETWEEN PAINKILLERS AND INCREASED RISK OF BREAST CANCER

Thu, 02 Jun 2005 00:00:00 -0700

A study published in the released on May 31, in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute suggests that long-term use of ibuprofen or aspirin may raise the risk of breast cancer in women.

This surprising finding has no biological explanation and actually runs contrary to numerous prior studies which linked pan relievers with a lower risk of colon cancer. The researchers themselves had expected to find that the two painkillers lowered the risk of breast cancer.

The study analyzed information relating to 114,460 California teachers between the ages of 22 and 85 who were free of breast cancer when they enrolled in the ongoing California Teachers Study a decade ago. Between 1995 and 2001, 2,391 of these women were diagnosed with breast cancer. When all users of the two painkillers were considered together, no link was suggested. However, those who used ibuprofen daily for at least 5 years were 50% more likely to develop breast cancer. The figure jumped to 80% in the case of daily aspirin users.

While the researchers did not advise anyone to stop taking aspirin or ibuprofen as a result of the study, they are convinced that the two painkillers are not reducing breast cancer.

Prempro Premarin Premphase Breast Cancer Lawyer

Thu, 02 Jun 2005 00:00:00 -0700

Breast Cancer

Breast cancer is the most common malignancy in women and the second leading cause of cancer death (exceeded by lung cancer in 1985). Breast cancer is three times more common than all gynecologic malignancies put together. The incidence of breast cancer has been increasing steadily from an incidence of 1:20 in 1960 to 1:8 women today.

The American Cancer Society estimates that 211,000 new cases of invasive breast cancer will be diagnosed this year and 43,300 patients will die from the disease. Breast cancer is truly an epidemic among women and we don't know why.

Breast cancer is not exclusively a disease of women. For every 100 women with breast cancer, 1 male will develop the disease. The American Cancer society estimates that 1,600 men will develop the disease this year. The evaluation of men with breast masses is similar to that in women, including mammography.

The incidence of breast cancer is very low in the twenties (age) gradually increases and plateaus at the age of forty-five and increases dramatically after fifty. Fifty percent of breast cancer is diagnosed in women over sixty-five indicating the ongoing necessity of yearly screening throughout a woman's life.

Breast cancer is considered a heterogeneous disease, meaning that it is a different disease in different women, a different disease in different age groups and has different cell populations within the tumor itself. Generally, breast cancer is a much more aggressive disease in younger women. Autopsy studies show that 2% of the population has undiagnosed breast cancer at the time of death. Older women typically have much less aggressive disease than younger women.

Invasive lobular breast cancer affects about 10-15% of all women with breast cancer. It can occur at any age, but more commonly affects women in the 45-55 year age group. Men can also get invasive lobular breast cancer but this is very rare.

Invasive lobular breast cancer is generally no more serious than other types of breast cancer. However, it is sometimes found in both breasts at the same time and there is also a slightly greater risk of it occurring in the opposite breast at a later date.

If you or a loved one has taken Hormone Replacement Therapy drugs and been diagnosed with Breast cancer, please fill out the form at the right for a free case evaluation by a qualified defective drug attorney.