Breast Cancer News & Features

Compared with yearly screening, biannual mammograms do not significantly boost the average woman's risk of death from breast cancer. And they greatly reduce the potential harms, the American Council of Physicians said.

Surgery was associated with a 44% increased chance of survival, assuming that most patients were also treated with chemo or targeted drug therapies, the study found.

Not only is dense breast tissue a risk factor for breast cancer, but mammograms can be difficult to interpret because dense tissue can obscure signs of breast cancer.

If doctors could better predict which patients had a high recurrence risk, those women might want to continue hormone therapy past the standard five years.

The combination of immunotherapy (Tecentriq) and chemotherapy (Abraxane) received accelerated approval for triple-negative breast cancer that is locally advanced or has spread, cannot be surgically removed, and has cells that have a protein called PD-L1, CNN reported.

Even when women have health insurance, high deductibles may delay them from having breast cancer diagnosed and treated, researchers say.

Thermography devices -- also called digital infrared imaging devices -- are approved by the FDA only for use with another screening or diagnostic test like mammography, not as a stand-alone diagnostic tool.

In the clinical trial of the new drug, sacituzumab govitecan, about a third of the patients responded to treatment and the effect lasted up to eight months. The research was funded by the drug's maker.

If harmful DDT exposures occur at times when breast tissue is rapidly changing, such as during puberty, they impact breast development in ways that can later result in cancer, the study author said.

The new study estimates that regular screening plus improved treatments cut the expected rate of breast cancer death in 2018 by between 45 to 58 percent.

The number of women with breast implant-associated anaplastic large cell lyphoma (BIA-ALCL) now stands at 457, compared with 414 in the last report, the FDA says.

When women control the pressure on their own breasts during a mammogram, they can tolerate more compression, a new study shows.

The risk for women under 60 years of age more than doubled in the first six months after diagnosis, and rose 80 percent six months to three years after diagnosis, the findings showed.

Healthier lifestyles might improve the prognosis of people with breast cancer if they will stick with the positive changes, researchers say.

A familiar drug for urinary incontinence has been found to reduce hot flashes in women after breast cancer.

With Same Breast Cancer Care, Black Women Do Worse By Maureen SalamonHealthDay Reporter THURSDAY, Dec. 6, 2018 (HealthDay News) -- Even with the same treatment, black women with the most common form of breast cancer experience higher recurrence and death rates than white women, a new trial reveals.The finding pokes holes in the prevailing notion that black women with breast cancer fare worse due to less access to quality medical care, experts said. While that factor may contribute to poorer outcomes, other factors -- such as the way drugs are metabolized based on race -- may be

New research shows that a lower dose of the hormone therapy Tamoxifen is as effective as the higher dose treatment in helping to prevent breast cancer from returning and guarding against new cancers in women who had high-risk breast tissue.

All of the women in the new trial had undergone a standard treatment scenario. First, they received traditional chemotherapy and the drug Herceptin (trastuzumab) -- an antibody that targets HER2-positive cancer cells. Then they had surgery to remove any remaining cancer.

People with breast cancer who took part in a breast cancer screening program had a 60 percent lower risk of dying from the disease in the 10 years after diagnosis, and a 47 percent lower risk 20 years after diagnosis, Swedish researchers report.

Compared with night owls, women who are early risers had a 40 percent lower risk of breast cancer, a new British study of the link between sleep traits and breast cancer risk found.

Researchers in two new pilot studies report that ketoprofen, a common anti-inflammatory drug, significantly eases swelling and other skin damage from lymphedema.

Women who lost 5 percent or more of their body weight had a 12 percent lower breast cancer risk than those whose weight remained the same, according to a study in the journal Cancer.

They analyzed studies that included more than 1.2 million women and found that those who regularly ate processed meats were 9 percent more likely to develop breast cancer, CNN reported.

Breast cancer survivors who have a gene linked to Alzheimer’s disease and who underwent chemotherapy were more likely to have long-term impairment in brain function, researchers say.

The researchers found that even though the women were relatively well-off, nearly 16 percent said their diagnosis was financially catastrophic. More than half had out-of-pocket costs of $3,500 or more. And 5 percent faced out-of-pocket costs of more than $30,000.