What You Need To Know News

Breast cancer would seem to have little to do with migraine headaches. But a study has found the two are connected in one sense: Women who have them are 30% less likely to develop breast cancer compared with women who do not have a history of migraines. The study, from Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, examined data from 3,412 postmenopausal women. More than half of the women had been diagnosed with breast cancer. The women were asked whether they had been diagnosed with migraines. The study found that migraine history appeared to reduce the risk of the most common subtypes of breast cancer: estrogen-receptor and progesterone-receptor positive.

Although there is no explanation for the connection, the study, published today in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention, suggests that the same hormones that contribute to breast cancer risk play a role in preventing migraines. For example, it’s been observed that some women who take birth control pills tend to have migraines during the hormone-free week each month. Other women have noted that they are free of migraines during pregnancy, when estrogen levels are high. Estrogen is known to stimulate the growth of hormonally sensitive breast cancer.
Source: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/booster_shots/2008/11/women-with-migr.html

Women who took calcium and vitamin D supplements developed breast cancer at the same rate as women who didn’t take them, a large clinical trial has found, overturning conclusions from previous studies that hinted at benefits from vitamin D.

The study — part of the massive Women’s Health Initiative — followed more than 36,000 post-menopausal women who were randomly assigned to take calcium and vitamin D supplements to see whether the supplements would make a difference in their incidence of hip fracture. Breast cancer and colorectal cancer were secondary outcomes studied by the researchers.

After about seven years, there were 528 cases of breast cancer in the group of women taking calcium and vitamin D compared with 546 cases in the placebo group — a difference not considered statistically significant. Blood tests for vitamin D levels also showed no correlation with breast cancer rates. Women who were already taking the supplements — about the same number in the supplement group and the placebo group — had been allowed to continue doing so.

“The main findings do not support a causal relationship between calcium and vitamin D supplement use and reduced breast cancer incidence, despite the association observed in some epidemiological studies,” the authors, led by Dr. Rowan T. Chlebowski of the Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, write in the online version of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. “Although further study of relationships among calcium plus vitamin D supplement use and breast cancer can be considered, current evidence does not support their use in any dose to reduce breast cancer risk.”

The study is valuable because it is the first rigorous test of vitamin D that accounts for factors the earlier, observational studies were unable to capture, said Dr. Jennifer A. Ligibel, a medical oncologist at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Women who take dietary supplements might be healthier than women who don’t, for example. But there are still questions about vitamin D that need to be answered.

“I think this is an important study. It tells us there is absolutely more work that needs to be done on vitamin D,” Ligibel said in an interview. She was not involved in the study. “I do think the study should put a little bit of brakes on people telling people to take huge doses of vitamin D to prevent cancer.”

In an editorial also appearing in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Dr. Corey Speers and Dr. Powel Brown of Baylor College of Medicine praise the study’s design and execution, but suggest further work to see whether the age of the women, the dose of vitamin D they were taking, the calcium they took with it, and the hormone therapy also being studied might have confounded the results.

“The potential health benefits of vitamin D and calcium may yet still have a bright future,” they write.

Few types of food or their components, from fat to carbohydrates to fruits and vegetables, have turned out to have a proven relationship in the development of breast cancer or its recurrence, with the exception of alcohol, which has been linked to increased risk, said Ligibel of Dana-Farber. She tells her patients about preliminary evidence that a diet high in fat might not be the best.

“I think there is a lot to learn in this area still, but I personally do not counsel my patients that they need to make tremendous dietary changes based on the information available,” she said.
Source: http://www.boston.com/news/health/blog/2008/11/calcium_plus_vi.html

An experimental breast cancer vaccine makes mice reject tumors — even cancers no longer sensitive to Herceptin.

The vaccine targets breast cancers that grow wildly in response to a growth factor called HER-2. About 25% of women with breast cancer have HER-2 positive tumors.

Herceptin, a man-made antibody approved for the treatment of breast cancer, targets these cancers. But after a while, tumor cells often become resistant to Herceptin.

The new vaccine elicits immune responses that kill HER-2 positive breast tumors in mice, whether or not they’ve become Herceptin resistant, says Wei-Zen Wei, PhD, professor of immunology at Detroit’s Karmanos Cancer Institute.

“Regardless of whether tumor cells are resistant, if immune cells are properly primed by immunization we can destroy these cells,” Wei tells WebMD.

The vaccine developed by Wei’s team uses DNA that carries the genetic code for a key piece of the HER-2 molecule. After injection of the DNA into the skin, a small electric pulse is administered to help cells take up the DNA and produce the protein that elicits immune responses.

Mice given the vaccine made anti-HER-2 antibodies. The vaccine also primed cellular immune responses that attacked breast cancer tumors. These cellular responses alone were enough to kill HER-2 positive cells in mice unable to make antibodies.

A version of the vaccine is now undergoing human safety tests.

Last April, a different HER-2 vaccine made headlines when it halved the number of deaths in women with HER-2 positive breast cancer. The vaccine also slowed breast cancer recurrence.

However, researchers at San Antonio’s Brooke Army Medical Center found that 26 months after vaccination, there was no significant difference in cancer recurrence between vaccinated and unvaccinated women.

Gary Yang, MD, associate professor of radiation medicine at Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, N.Y., says these human studies are a major step forward.

“These studies accomplished a lot — but we need to find out why the immune system cannot sustain this efficacy,” Yang tells WebMD.

Yang says that is why Wei’s team’s work is so important. What’s learned in the lab must be tested in patients — and then more lab work is needed to answer questions raised by human studies.

“The clinical research into breast cancer vaccines is not going to be a home run,” he says.

Wei is convinced that in the long run, vaccines will prove to be powerful cancer treatments.

“Ultimately, we will be using the best defense we have to fight cancer — the human immune system,” she says. “It is a very challenging thing to do. We hope we have reached a point where we can make it useful to patients.”
Source: http://www.webmd.com/breast-cancer/news/20080915/new-vaccine-fights-breast-cancer-tumors

WOMEN as young as 18 could have a simple mouth swab to determine how likely they are to develop breast cancer but doctors warn the results could cause serious psychological stress and would not identify all women at risk.

The test, being developed at the University of Cambridge, would tell if a woman was carrying any of seven newly found genes linked to breast cancer. It would also test for the two high-risk genes, BRCA1 and BRCA2, discovered a decade ago.

The researchers said women deemed high-risk could be advised to have regular mammograms or choose to have their breasts removed. Those not carrying any of the genes could wait until the age of 60 before having screening.

Their findings were published in the New England Journal Of Medicine yesterday, less than a week after Jane McGrath, the wife of the cricketer Glenn McGrath, lost her 11-year battle with breast cancer on Sunday at the age of 42.

Since her death, the national screening program, BreastScreen Australia, has been inundated with inquiries. It was also flooded with calls from anxious women after the singer Kylie Minogue was diagnosed with breast cancer three years ago and the actress Belinda Emmett died of the disease in 2006.

The executive director of the NSW Breast Cancer Institute, John Boyages, said yesterday that, while advances in diagnosis were welcome, the mouth swab should be treated with caution.

“They have now found seven genes linked to breast cancer but there could be 27 that we don’t know about yet, so it gives women false reassurance,” Professor Boyages said. “And what does a 20-year-old girl do when she tests positive? Takes both her breasts off?”

The director of the Cancer Epidemiology Centre at the Cancer Council Victoria, Professor Graham Giles, said the research was reputable but the test was not foolproof, and it could scare people unnecessarily.

“There are women who will be deemed high-risk and will never develop breast cancer and there will be women deemed low-risk who will get breast cancer because genes are not the only determinants of cancer,” he said.
Source: http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/caution-on-breast-cancer-predictor/2008/06/26/1214472673459.html

It appears that breast awareness may be your best way to fight breast cancer. This comes after a new study by the Cochrane Library Review revealed that breast self-examinations do not help reduce the number of deaths from breast cancer.

The study carried out by the Cochrane Library focused on two large population-based studies of around 400,000 women in China and Russia.

It found that the practice of routine breast self-examination did not help in the fight against breast cancer, as the number of deaths were not reduced.

The American Cancer Society has stated that over 180,000 Americans will be diagnosed with breast cancer this year, and the best way to fight it is to have breast awareness, and knowledge.

Knowledge is key, as it is important to know risk factors such as gender, aging, family history, personal history, race, etc.

The report released has shown that having a routine mammogram test may be your best bet, as well as routine check-ups with a medical professional.
Source: http://chattahbox.com/health/2008/07/21/breast-awareness-appears-to-be-most-important-in-cancer-fight/

Scientists in Cambridge believe they are close to developing a test that will analyse each woman’s genetic make-up and determine whether she is at high or low risk of the cancer.

Until now, women have been told they have a one in nine chance of developing breast cancer at some point in their lives.
But some women with a strong family history are at greater risk than this and some women are less likely to develop it.

Currently, only women with a strong family history are offered screening tests to establish if they are carrying genes that increase their risk.

These genes are rare but for those who have them it means they can have between 50 per cent and 85 per cent chance of breast cancer in their lifetime.

Many women who have been told they are carrying the faulty genes have opted for a double mastectomy to remove their breast tissue rather than live with regular checks.

A study carried out by a team at the University of Cambridge and funded by Cancer Research UK has found that offering a more widespread screening test looking at combinations of genes that increase breast cancer risk is feasible.

It would help doctors identify women who are unlikely to develop breast cancer and so could reduce the frequency of their mammogram checks.

Study author Dr Paul Pharoah said: “We are a few years away from a new and powerful range of genetic tests for breast cancer. We believe genetic testing has the potential to enable doctors to identify a woman at an increased risk of breast cancer who would benefit from mammography at an early age or women who may benefit from regular MRI scanning as well. This approach would also identify a 55 year old woman with a low chance of breast cancer who possibly wouldn’t need such regular checks.”

The findings are published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Some genes are very rare, like BRCA1 and BRCA2, but greatly increase the risk that the carrier will develop breast cancer.

Others including CHEK2, ATM, BRIP1 and PALB2 are rare and not all women with them will develop the condition but they do increase the risk of cancer.

Some genes are common in the population but only slightly increase the risk of breast cancer.

Lead author Professor Sir Bruce Ponder, director of Cancer Research UK’s Cambridge Research Institute at the University of Cambridge, said: “It is very exciting to see workable and affordable approaches to genetic screening for breast cancer on the horizon. We expect such technology to develop very fast in the next decade so it’s important that we start thinking about how best to apply these advances.”

Dr Lesley Walker, director of cancer information at Cancer Research UK said: “This study marks the potential for a tailor-made approach to screening for breast cancer which could radically change who we target and how we detect early signs of the disease. Great progress has been made to improve our understanding of the ways in which certain genes affect the risk of breast cancer - and as scientists find even more of these ‘risk genes’, our ability to use genetic tests to identify woman at risk will improve. But there is still some way to go before this kind of profiling becomes a reality.”
Source:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/health/2193283/Test-to-determine-each-woman’s-chances-of-breast-cancer.html

Adult women who were breast-fed as infants may have a lower risk of developing breast cancer than those who were not breast-fed, unless they were first-born, study findings suggest.

“As a general group, women who reported they had been breast-fed in infancy had a 17 percent decrease in breast cancer risk,” Hazel B. Nichols, who was involved in the study, told Reuters Health.

“However, we did not observe this reduction when we looked specifically among first-born women,” said Nichols, of the University of Wisconsin, in Madison.

A woman’s age at childbirth helps predict the levels of environmental contaminants in her breast milk, and studies have suggested a possible link between increased breast cancer risk and the accumulation of these contaminants, Nichols and colleagues note in the medical journal Epidemiology.

To analyze whether an adult woman’s birth order, mother’s age at the time of her birth, and whether or not she was breast-fed alters her risk for breast cancer, the investigators interviewed 2,016 women, aged 20 to 69 years, with breast cancer, and 1,960 women of similar age without breast cancer.

As noted, women breast-fed during infancy generally had reduced breast cancer risk.

However, in analyses restricted to breast-fed women, those with 3 or more older siblings had a lesser risk for breast cancer than first born women, the researchers found. But breast-fed women showed no altered breast cancer risk according to their mothers’ age at childbirth.

Among women who were not breast-fed, reduced adult breast cancer risk was linked with their mothers’ older age at childbirth, but the investigators identified no association between breast cancer risk and birth order in this group.
While the current results hint that breast cancer risk may differ according to whether or not women were breast-fed during infancy, additional studies are needed to determine if these associations vary with duration of breast-feeding or according to measured levels of environmental contaminants present in breast milk, Nichols said.

Source:  http://uk.reuters.com/article/healthNewsMolt/idUKKEN96096220080509?pageNumber=2