breast cancer

As a society, we can't treat our way out of breast cancer.
It would be far too expensive. Although surgery, radiation, and
medical therapies for breast cancer have improved, the physical toxicity—and expense—of treating advanced-stage cancers would be too great...

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By speaking up, advocates at the meeting have shifted the direction of breast cancer research. Some are alive, improbably, as a consequence of new treatments enabled and promoted by their advocacy. ...

These results have the potential to reduce overtreatment of breast cancer—stopping patients’ unnecessary exposure to chemotherapy—in a large fraction of cases...

For patients with metastatic breast cancer, doctors don’t yet know how to predict long-term responses to this PARP drug...

The paradigm for using chemo first to treat advanced breast cancer may change, as we gain experience with these new drugs...

Her disclosure reflects on the positive impact of awareness, the unfortunate frequency of breast cancer, and benefits of having medical insurance...

I hope for the future that other brilliant minds will have found and implemented ways to prevent most breast cancers, established accurate methods to detect it early, and developed better treatments, aimed at cures...

Now, there’s ample data to assuage most concerns. Among 1207 women with breast cancer before age 50, those who later delivered babies experienced no more likelihood of recurrence than did those who didn’t bear more children...

Metastatic breast cancer patients represent a significant group within the U.S. population who live with a chronic or terminal condition and stand to benefit from new treatments...

None of 42 experienced radiologists recalled having seen a single case of breast cancer vanish or regress without treatment...

Is there such a thing as statistical gas-lighting?...

Can you perform a sentinel lymph node biopsy, and avoid removing all of the glands from my armpit?...

Since 1983, the Komen organization has raised and distributed more money for breast cancer care, education and scientific investigations than any entity besides the U.S. government…...

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The overdiagnosis campaign reflects a lack of respect for women’s capacity to act rationally upon receiving an abnormal test result...

Ribociclib is one of several CDK inhibitors being tried in breast cancer and other malignancies...

Risk factors for male breast cancer include genetic variants, obesity and high estrogen levels. As with women, inheriting a BRCA mutation can play a role...

Avoiding recurrence is a legitimate goal, but there’s a trade-off...

The public has every right to current information on what’s known about survival after a diagnosis of metastatic breast cancer, and for all forms of cancer...

The potential to reduce overtreatment, in women with a low chance of recurrence for which chemo is unlikely to be of benefit, is huge...

Online communities can be terrific. But in person, patients hug one another, and develop trust, bonds that last, hopefully, from one year’s meeting to the next...

The series invites women and doctors to step out of their pro- or con- trenches, take a look at the modern screening landscape, scrutinize everything and re-assess all options...

The benefits of Prolia appear to exceed those reported for a competing class of drugs, bisphosphonates. It’s well-tolerated and comparatively easy to take…...

Die-in for metastatic breast cancer, Washington DC, October 13, 2015 (photo courtesy of Zachary Parker)...

The number of people living with stage 4, metastatic breast cancer is unknown...

The ACS now advises most women to wait until they reach age 45 for their first breast cancer screen. This is a huge mistake...

Whether or not mammography is effective at detecting breast cancer early, these findings demonstrate the current benefit of early detection...

DCIS accounts for approximately 1 in 5 breast cancer-ish diagnoses in the United States. The practical problem with DCIS is that most oncologists, surgical and medical, will admit they’re not sure what to do about it...

If overtreatment is the problem, the solution is not by avoidance of breast cancer detection, but by better education of physicians and patients...

The statistical assault on breast cancer screening continues. JAMA Internal Medicine has published another analysis…...

A new study sheds light on social and economic factors that influence whether women with breast cancer get lumpectomy or mastectomy...

The increasing invasive, ER+ breast cancers in women who are otherwise healthy can’t be ignored...

In a prospective randomized trial, adding a “shave” to the lumpectomy site reduced positive margins and halved re-operations...

Ignoring non-invasive conditions like DCIS and LCIS, or telling women they’d be better off not knowing about early stage tumors, is not a smart option...

The Shower Shirt is made of waterproof parachute material on the outside, with microfiber on the inside of the neck, a water-resistant zipper, flap, and Velcro all the way down in front...

There is no good trial of mammography using current radiology systems in the context of modern pathology and minimalist treatment approaches. And there is none underway. As seen in Forbes...

The panel’s C recommendation lessens the likelihood that women under 50 years will be encouraged to get mammograms and opens up the possibility that insurance will not cover their screening...

The authors’ definition of false positives and assumptions of overdiagnosis undermine calculations of mammography’s costs...

Automated whole breast ultrasound screening has the potential to improve breast cancer screening of women with dense breasts...

Anne Parker’s perspective on cancer care – as a family member, patient and advocate – spans over 50 years...

Researchers today are analyzing our grandmothers’ mammograms to inform women’s health and screening decisions today...

Lisa wasn’t quiet about life or living with a devastating condition...

Radiologists who publish academic papers on breast imaging may be influenced by idiosyncrasies in training, what machines their practices own or hospitals happen to have purchased, anecdotal experiences and personal skills...

The FDA’s decision on palbociclib immediately expands treatment options for a large fraction of people living with metastatic breast cancer. What limits enthusiasm is how much this oral drug will cost...

Women have every right to know if they have dense breasts and if they’re at increased risk for a hidden tumor...

To issue sound guidelines on breast cancer screening, would the USPSTF benefit by including an oncologist or radiologist on the panel?...

A low Oncotype DCIS score predicts a low chance that non-invasive breast cancer will recur. The study supports that many women with DCIS can safely forgo radiation...

The IBIS-1 trial shows a dramatic, reductive effect of tamoxifen in preventing breast tumors...

What’s concerning about the preliminary findings is that the median time to response was 18 weeks. For patients to wait four months or longer to see if there’s a benefit seems like a lot; these are women without much time to spare...

First, you need awareness. In many world regions, fatalism is still an obstacle. Second, you need a delivery system. Third…...

What this movie gets right is the loneliness of having cancer – the feeling that kicks in when you’re awake and alive in some sort of hyper-sterile place receiving therapy, where there’s no one else...

Too often, people undergo surgery for small, unlikely-to-be-harmful thyroid tumors. But thyroid cancer is not breast cancer...

Many patients living with metastatic breast cancer need more help than they’re receiving, and many are reluctant to ask...

Patients have different preferences and needs; advocates have different styles and priorities. The issue about October is that..  ...

Perjeta extends survival in patients with Her2 positive breast cancer. Might drugs targeting Her2 be effective in other malignancies?...

This film touches on tough cancer subjects as few movies do: women’s feelings of physical inadequacy after surgery, issues of sexuality and potential turning off of partners…...

BRCA genetic test results inform but don’t dictate an individual woman’s risk of developing cancer...

Chemotherapy treatments for early-stage breast cancer vary widely in their possible side effects. But few newly-diagnosed patients press their oncologists about those differences...

Most women do well, for many years, after the smallest surgery possible to remove an invasive breast tumor. But the decision isn’t easy...

A key question about tomosynthesis is whether it’s worth investing in so many new machines and educating radiologists to interpret 3-D breast images...

This new JAMA article reviews the literature. At a glance, it may add to the growing perception among journalists, primary care physicians and others – including ordinary women – that mammography’s effectiveness has been, again, disproved...

What’s great about this piece, and what’s wrong about it, is that it comes from an indi­vidual woman...

Survivor seems a strange term for a patient like me, said by her oncologist to be in remission—meaning that there’s no overt evidence of persistent cancer cells in the body...

Some feel slighted or ignored during awareness month — counter-examples to the common notion of survivorship...

Singing “Rock and Roll,” on top of a piano...

In Kansas, legislators recently passed the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act. If enacted into law, the bill would require doctors to tell pregnant women of a relationship between abortion and breast cancer...

If a drug helps, keep it going; if it hurts, stop. There are so many algorithms in medicine, and molecular tools, but maybe the bottom line is how the, one, your patient is doing...

Few forms of invasive breast cancer warrant no treatment unless the patient is so old that she is likely to die first of another condition, or the patient prefers to die of the disease….“Mammograms Spot Cancers That May Not Be Dangerous,” said…...

The new findings have no bearing on whether or not cancer screening is cost-effective or life-saving. What the study does suggest is that med school math requirements should be upped and rigorous, counter to the trend...

Earlier this month, the ACS released its annual report on Cancer Facts and Figures. The document, based largely on analyses of SEER data from the NCI, supports that approximately 229,000 adults in the U.S. will receive a diagnosis of invasive…...

Last week’s report that drinking red wine could reduce the risk for breast cancer was just the latest in a long string of studies on the issue...

A woman with a breast cancer diagnosis faces many sudden choices, and in the emotional frenzy, reconstruction decisions may get short shrift...

On Sunday, Feb. 20, the Northeastern Pennsylvania Affiliate of Susan G. Komen for the Cure will host its seventh annual Pink Elegance on Parade fashion show at the Radisson at Lackawanna Station hotel, reports the Scranton Times Tribune...

Understanding breast cancer biology provides some new targets...

Earlier this month the Journal of the American Medical Association ( JAMA) published a myth-busting paper on weight lifting for women at risk for lymphedema after breast cancer treatment.  The study was neither large (154 patients at max,…...

Tired of seeing pink? You’re not alone, says Dr. Barron Lerner in a piece on Pink Ribbon Fatigue in the New York Times. While cancer awareness…...

Expertise can make a huge difference in clinical outcomes...

It’s pre­cisely because there are effec­tive treat­ments for early-stage dis­ease that it’s worth find­ing breast can­cer early...

The question is, what’s the right, PC and emotionally sound, sensitive but not sappy term to describe the situation of a person who’s living after breast cancer? Some might say, who cares if you’ve had it?...

But consider – if the expert panel’s numbers are off just a bit, by as little as one or two more lives saved per 1904 women screened, the insurers could make a profit! By my calculation, if one additional woman at a cost of, say, $1 million, is…...

Smack in the midst of October-is-breast-cancer-awareness-month, the Journal of the American Medical Association published a provocative article with a low-key title:  “ Rethinking Screening for Breast Cancer and Prostate Cancer.”...