breast cancer

Short chromosome ends in breast stem cells indicate susceptibility to breast cancer
06/04/2013 - 11:00

A new paper published in Stem Cell Reports suggests that stem cell precursors with short chromosome ends (scientists call them telomeres) may indicate susceptibility to breast cancer. Telomeres are like caps on both ends of a chromosome and consist of repetitive nucleotide sequences. Telomere shortening have been implicated in aging and cancer, but a mechanism linking short telomeres in stem cells to cancer pathogenesis has not been proposed before.

 

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PARP Inhibitor Shows Activity in Pancreatic, Prostate Cancers Among Patients Carrying BRCA Mutations
05/17/2013 - 13:00

In the largest clinical trial to date to examine the efficacy of PARP inhibitor therapy in BRCA 1/2 carriers with diseases other than breast and ovarian cancer, the oral drug olaparib was found to be effective against advanced pancreatic and prostate cancers. Results of the study, led by researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and Sheba Medical Center in Tel Hashomer, Israel, will be presented during the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s annual meeting in Chicago in early June (Abstract #11024).

 

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Big-Data Analysis Identifies Prognostic RNA Markers in a Common Form of Breast Cancer
04/29/2013 - 13:58

A Big-Data analysis that integrates three large sets of genomic data available through The Cancer Genome Atlas has identified 37 RNA molecules that might predict survival in patients with the most common form of breast cancer.

 

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Mammograms reveal response to common cancer drug
04/23/2013 - 11:08

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet have developed a method for assessing the effect of tamoxifen, a common drug to prevent the relapse of breast cancer. The key lies in monitoring changes in the proportion of dense tissue, which appears white on a mammogram, during treatment. Women who show a pronounced reduction in breast density during tamoxifen treatment have a fifty per cent reduction in breast cancer mortality. This tool provides doctors with the possibility to assess whether a patient is responding to tamoxifen at an early phase of treatment.

 

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Research discovers new drug target for metastatic breast cancer
04/11/2013 - 10:23

Research led by Dr. Suresh Alahari, Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans, is the first to report that two specific tumor suppressor genes work in concert to inhibit the growth and spread of breast tumor cells to the lungs. The research is published this week online in the Journal of Biological Chemistry.

 

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Nearly Half of Breast Cancer Patients at High Risk of Carrying BRCA Mutations Do Not Receive Genetic Testing Recommendations from Physicians
04/08/2013 - 14:20

Only 53 percent of newly diagnosed breast cancer patients who were at high risk of carrying a BRCA 1 or BRCA 2 mutation – based on age, diagnosis, and family history of breast or ovarian cancer – reported that their doctors urged them to be tested for the genes, according to a research team from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

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