Breast Cancer Health Center
News Related to Breast Cancer
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Quick Radiation Works for Breast Cancer
Nov. 4, 2009 (Chicago) -- A shorter, cheaper and more convenient three-week course of radiation appears to work just as well as the traditional six-week schedule for some women with early-stage breast cancer, a new study suggests. "We cut the duration of radiation treatment in half," says study rese
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Too Many Mastectomies? Maybe Not
Oct. 13, 2009 -- Are surgeons too quick to perform mastectomy instead of breast-conserving surgery? No, a new study suggests. When it's medically appropriate, breast-conserving surgery (lumpectomy) cures as many cancers as removal of the entire breast (mastectomy). Yet there's a sense that surgeons
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Gene Predicts Tamoxifen Success in Breast Cancer
Oct. 8, 2009 -- A single gene variant predicts breast cancer survival after tamoxifen treatment, a new study finds. In the 46% of women with the "good" gene, tamoxifen works as well as newer drugs. For women with the gene variant linked to poor response to tamoxifen treatment, other treatment strate
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Breast Cancer Deaths Drop Again
Sept. 30, 2009 -- Breast cancer death rates dropped 2%, continuing a decade-long decline, the American Cancer Society reports. That means about 15,000 deaths were avoided in 2009 alone, the ACS estimates. Breast cancer deaths declined among African-American women. But African-Americans are still 40%
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More Women Choose to Remove Noncancerous Breasts
Sept. 28, 2009 -- In the first study to define how many American women are undergoing prophylactic mastectomy, researchers have found that the number of women choosing to have the protective procedure is on the rise. Prophylactic mastectomy is the removal of a healthy breast in order to reduce risk
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Nexavar May Treat Advanced Breast Cancer
Sept. 24, 2009 (Berlin) -- Adding the cancer drug Nexavar to standard chemotherapy significantly extends the time until advanced breast cancer progresses, researchers report. In a study of more than 200 patients, those given Nexavar plus the chemotherapy drug Xeloda lived 2.3 months longer before th
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Surgery Improves Late-Stage Breast Cancer
Sept. 22, 2009 (Berlin) -- Women whose breast cancer is diagnosed late, when it has already spread to other parts of the body, live about a year and a half longer if their breast tumor is surgically removed, researchers report. The main treatment for most breast cancers is surgery to remove either t
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Diabetes Drug Fights Breast Cancer
Sept. 14, 2009 - The next breakthrough breast cancer treatment may be a diabetes drug already on the shelves of nearly every pharmacy. The drug is metformin, available generically and under brand names such as Glucophage and Fortamet. A growing body of evidence suggests that diabetes patients taking
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Second Breast Cancer: 3 Lifestyle Risks
Sept. 8, 2009 -- Being obese, drinking seven or more alcoholic beverages per week, and smoking may make a second breast cancer more likely, a new study shows. The study, published in the advance online edition of the Journal of Clinical Oncology, focused on women with estrogen receptor-positive (ER-
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Lifestyle Changes Cut Breast Cancer Risk
Sept. 3, 2009 -- More than 70,000 breast cancer cases a year in the U.S., or 40% of all cases, could be prevented with lifestyle measures like maintaining a healthy weight, eating well, exercising, and limiting alcohol consumption, a new analysis shows. The joint project from the nonprofit research
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