Breast Cancer

Scientists have discovered that African American patients with triple-negative breast cancer who carry a specific biomarker, nKIFC1, experience a dismal prognosis.

Researchers at the University of Illinois and collaborators in China have found a way to tag and target elusive cancers with small-molecule sugars by hijacking a cancer cell’s own metabolism.

In patients with breast cancer with a recurrence score based on a 21-gene expression assay of 11 to 25, outcomes were similar whether chemotherapy was used or not.

Combining a genetically engineered epothilone analog known as utidelone with capecitabine significantly improved progression-free survival in women with metastatic breast cancer who were refractory to anthracycline and taxane regimens.

Relatively few clinically important therapeutic advances have occurred in the treatment of triple-negative breast cancer since the introduction of taxanes as adjuvant therapy over 20 years ago. However, this is rapidly changing due to a variety of conceptually important clinical trials and emerging new options.

We know that breast cancer represents a spectrum of diseases, with variation in prognosis, and that RT can range from highly complex treatments to the breast and regional lymph nodes, to complete avoidance of radiation.

To paraphrase a deep philosophical question: if an important, long-awaited phase III prospective randomized trial from Europe is published and no one pays attention, does it make a sound?

A phase I trial found that ONT-380 had a lower incidence of certain adverse events associated with this class of agent and notable anti-tumor activity in heavily pretreated metastatic HER2-positive breast cancer patients.

A large registry study found that certain breast cancer patients gain a significant survival benefit with breast conserving surgery plus radiation therapy compared with mastectomy.

Researchers at Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center have been studying the ability of a novel panel of cell-free DNA methylation markers to predict survival in women with metastatic breast cancer.

Residual cancer burden was found to be prognostic for long-term survival following neoadjuvant chemotherapy for three phenotypic subsets of breast cancer in a new single-institution study.

A secondary concern of breast cancer is the risk of the cancer cells spreading to the bones, causing severe pain and affecting quality of life. But a new study has identified how bones get damaged and researchers from Huntsman Cancer Institute at the University of Utah are developing a new drug to mitigate this problem.

Anxiety is common among partners of young breast cancer survivors, even several years after the diagnosis, according to a new analysis. Anxiety was correlated with the use of less constructive and more maladaptive coping strategies.

In my practice, I am constantly being asked how to properly treat scalp involvement in relation to these skin toxicities.

In July 2003, an asymptomatic 40-year-old man presented to his primary care physician for routine care and was found to have a palpable right axillary lymph node.

Brain metastases from primary breast cancer tumors often acquire clinically actionable genetic alterations, according to a small study. About one fifth of ERBB2/HER2-negative cases switched to HER2-positivity in the brain metastases.

A study recently published is suggesting that a key drug target, CDK4/6, regulates a cancer metastasis protein, and may play a role in combating metastasis in triple-negative breast cancer. In addition, this new finding may point to a new way of preventing metastasis in other cancers.

The use of mammography, but not colonoscopy, has increased in the post–Affordable Care Act years, which eliminated out-of-pocket expenditures for these recommended services, according to the results of a new study.

Breast cancer screening was not associated with any reduction in the incidence of advanced cancer, and overdiagnosis of invasive tumors and ductal carcinoma in situ is a common problem, according to a new study conducted in Denmark.

Among cancer patients with bone metastases, administration of zoledronic acid every 12 weeks did not increase the risk of skeletal events over 2 years compared with the standard dosing of every 4 weeks.

An anti-HER2 dendritic vaccination may be a safe and immunogenic treatment to induce tumor-specific T-cell responses in HER2-positive, early-stage breast cancer patients.

The use of acellular dermal matrices in implant-based breast reconstruction after mastectomy was associated with an increased rate of adverse events compared with a two-stage procedure.

The FDA has approved a new device that allows for the expansion of soft tissue in two-stage breast reconstruction surgery conducted after mastectomy.

A higher quantity of stromal tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) was associated with better overall survival in patients with advanced HER2-positive breast cancer treated with either pertuzumab or placebo, along with trastuzumab and docetaxel.

A study found that about 20% of women with breast cancer did not complete their prescribed endocrine therapy.

Larger social networks involving family, friends, community ties, and other connections are associated with better breast cancer–specific and overall survival.

We review available strategies for screening and risk reduction through chemoprevention or risk-reducing surgery, as well as challenges for management of breast cancer in patients with prior exposure to radiation for Hodgkin lymphoma.

Curative therapy, including chest RT for Hodgkin lymphoma, is associated with a definitively increased risk of breast cancer, most often manifesting approximately 20 years after treatment. These breast cancers tend to be more aggressive, with greater frequency of hormone receptor negativity and potential HER2 positivity.

Over the long term, local recurrence is more likely in young women with invasive breast cancer who undergo breast conserving surgery compared with those who undergo mastectomy, though survival is no different.

A biosimilar yielded equivalent response rates to trastuzumab at 24 weeks in a study of women with HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer.