breast cancer

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Cardiologist Isn't Smart Enough to order Vitamin D Levels ~ The Insurance Company

I saw my cardiologist last week and we had been communicating, via e-mail, about the benefits of Vitamin D for diabetes and cardiovascular health [adequate vitamin D levels actually prevent the "foam cells" from ingesting more cholesterol and, finally, bursting and turning into a stroke or MI]. He had written back saying that he was now "a Believer". He found that testing his statin patients who complained about myalgias and chronic fatigue for 25-OH Vitamin D revealed that they were ALL low despite the fact that they were well nourished and had no apparent malabsorption issues. They all got better when their vitamin D levels were brought up into the normal range.More »

25-OH vitamin D levels, aromatase inhibitors, breast cancer, cardiology, cardiovascular health, cholesterol, foam cells, heart health, Vitamin D

News Story

Herceptin and Tykerb May be Effective Against a Subset of Gastric Cancers

03/04/2010

A combination of two targeted therapies already shown to be effective in breast cancer packs an effective one-two punch against a subset of gastric cancers that have a specific genetic mutation, a study at UCLA's Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center has found.

The drugs Herceptin and Tykerb when given together proved to significantly inhibit tumor growth in gastric cancers that had amplified levels of HER2, a mutation that results in an aggressive form of the disease, causing the cancers to grow and spread faster. The work was done both on cell lines and in animal models with human HER2-amplified gastric cancers.More »

breast cancer, stomach cancer

Common Osteoporosis Drugs Are Associated With a Decrease in Risk of Breast Cancer

03/03/2010

Women who take some types of bone-building drugs used to prevent and treat osteoporosis may be at lower risk of breast cancer, according to a study by U.S. researchers published in the British Journal of Cancer.

The study found that women who used bisphosphonate drugs, such as Fosamax, Boniva and Zomita, for more than two years had a nearly 40 percent reduction in risk as compared to those who did not, according to lead author Polly Newcomb, Ph.D., M.P.H., head of the Cancer Prevention Program at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.More »

bisphosphonates, breast cancer

FDA Expands Use of Approved Breast Cancer Drug

01/30/2010

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today approved Tykerb (lapatinib) in combination with Femara (letrozole) to treat hormone positive and HER2-positive advanced breast cancer in postmenopausal women for whom hormonal therapy is indicated.

HER2 is a protein involved in normal cell growth. It is found on some types of cancer cells, including breast cancer cells. In hormone positive breast cancer, the presence of certain hormones contributes to breast cancer growth. In HER2-positive breast cancer, stimulation of the HER2 receptor contributes to cancer cell growth. Breast cancer is the second leading cause of death among women. More than 192,000 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer this year.More »

breast cancer

Breast Cancer Survival Improves If Herceptin Is Used With Chemotherapy

01/05/2010

Using Herceptin ((trastuzumab) with chemotherapy, instead of after, clearly improves treatment of women with HER2+ breast cancer, and should be the new standard of care, says a Mayo Clinic researcher who led what is regarded to be a key clinical trial determining the best use of Herceptin.

Patients using Herceptin and chemotherapy at the same time had a relative 25 percent reduction in the risk of recurrence of cancer or death, compared with women who used Herceptin after chemotherapy, says Edith Perez, M.D., chair, North Central Cancer Treatment Group (NCCTG) Breast Committee and a breast cancer researcher at the Mayo Clinic campus in Jacksonville, Fla. She presented the findings of the study at the Cancer Therapy & Research Center-American Association for Cancer Research (CTRC-AACR) 2009 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.More »

breast cancer, chemotherapy, Herceptin, trastuzumab

Switching Early Breast Cancer Patients To Exemestane Improves Long-term Survival

09/24/2009

New research has found that switching post-menopausal women with early breast cancer to the drug exemestane (Aromasin) after two or three years of tamoxifen rather than keeping them on tamoxifen for five years improves the chance of remaining cancer free and reduces the risk of death for at least the next six years.More »

Aromasin, breast cancer, exemestane, tamoxifen

Treating Bone Loss In Breast Cancer Survivors

09/22/2009

Osteoporosis is a growing concern among breast cancer survivors and their doctors, because certain cancer drugs can cause bone loss.

Many breast cancer patients also experience secondary causes of bone loss, such as vitamin D deficiency.

But a Loyola University Health System study has found that bone loss can be halted with a comprehensive regimen that includes both osteoporosis drugs and treatments that target secondary causes of bone loss.

The study by Dr. Pauline Camacho and colleagues was presented at the annual meeting of the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research.More »

breast cancer, Loyola University, Osteoporosis, Vitamin D

Data Compares Effectiveness of Femara to Tamoxifen After Breast Cancer Surgery

08/21/2009

EAST HANOVER, N.J.- Newly published data in The New England Journal of Medicine affirm five-year upfront use of Femara (letrozole tablets) following surgery as an optimal treatment approach versus tamoxifen for postmenopausal women with early stage breast cancer (hormone-receptor positive).

The data include an analysis from the Breast International Group (BIG) 1-98 trial that evaluated patients taking either a sequence of Femara and tamoxifen for five years or Femara alone (as monotherapy) for five years. Also included is the update of the Monotherapy Arms Analysis (MAA) conducted 10 years after initiation of the study, comparing five years of Femara alone versus five years of tamoxifen alone following surgery (adjuvant setting). The BIG 1-98 trial was conducted by the International Breast Cancer Study Group (IBCSG).More »

breast cancer, Femara, Novartis, tamoxifen

Tamoxifen Shows Promise Against Antifungal Infections

07/22/2009

ScienceDaily — An FDA-approved drug used for preventing recurrence of breast cancer shows promise in fighting life-threatening fungal infections common in immune-compromised patients, such as infants born prematurely and patients with cancer. Some scientists suspected that tamoxifen has antifungal properties; now new research from the University of Rochester Medical Center shows that it actually kills fungus cells and stops them from causing disease.More »

breast cancer, fungal infections, tamoxifen

Identifying The Potential For Tamoxifen Resistance In Patients

06/25/2009

ScienceDaily (June 25, 2009) — Tamoxifen is a widely used and highly successful drug in the treatment of breast cancer, though resistance to tamoxifen is still a concern in recurrent disease (affecting 25-35% of patients), since therapy resistant metastatic tumor cells are a major cause of death. Researchers have uncovered a protein profile that may accurately predict whether a cancer will be tamoxifen resistant.More »

breast cancer, tamoxifen

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