Breast Cancer

The FDA approves a combination of drugs for breast cancer. Source: U.S. Food & Drug Administration. Breast cancer is the second leading cause of death among women.

FDA begins process to remove breast cancer indication from Avastin label

Drug not shown to be safe and effective in breast cancer patients Erica Jefferson, December 2010 FDA Information The U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced today that the agency is recommending removing the breast cancer indication from the label for Avastin (bevacizumab) because the drug has not been shown to be safe and effective for [...]

FDA: Gardasil approved to prevent anal cancer

Media Inquiries: Shelly Burgess The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today approved the vaccine Gardasil for the prevention of anal cancer and associated precancerous lesions due to human papillomavirus (HPV) types 6, 11, 16, and 18 in people ages 9 through 26 years. Gardasil is already approved for the same age population for the prevention [...]

New Chemotherapy option for metastatic breast cancer.

Source: US Food and Drug Administration The FDA has now approved Eribulin mesylate injection (Halaven; Eisai, Inc) yesterday for the treatment of metastatic breast cancer.  The drug is for patients who have received at least 2 prior chemotherapy regimens for late-stage breast cancer. Eribulin is a synthetic analog of halichondrin B, a novel microtubule dynamics [...]

Household cleaners linked to breast cancer?

Sources:  Web MD; Julia Body, PhD, The Silent Spring Institute; Zota, A., Environmental Health, July 20, 2010; Michael Thun, MD, VP emeritus of epidemiology, American Cancer Society; Susan Brown, Dir. Health Education, Susan G. Komen for the Cure A recent study published in the Journal Environmental Health has, not surprisingly, been criticized strongly by Industry [...]

A breast cancer vaccine on the horizon?

Source:  BBC Health; Journal Nature Medicine. Researchers at the Cleveland Clinic's Lerner Research Institute (for those not "in the know", the Cleveland Clinic is  a highly regarded institution)  are now conducting human trials of a breast cancer vaccine.  The vaccine specifically targets a protein common to breast cancer tumors (a-lactalbumin). Studies upon mice (Sorry PETA, [...]

Breast Cancer screening (Mammography) is beneficial

Source:  BBC Health; Journal of Medical Screening Still think screening for breast cancer doesn't matter?  In this country there is a lot of debate about that very topic.  Opponents of screening suggest that it results in over-treatment for "lumps" that may be benign cysts or nothing at all.  What is over-treatment?  Sometimes simple referral for [...]

Breast Cancer spread cut from Blood Pressure drug?

Source:  BBC Health; European Breast Cancer Conference, Barcelona As it sometimes happens in medicine, a drug that has been proven to work in less than stellar ways for a given condition may have a completely unintended but surprisingly beneficial medical outcome.  What the heck am I talking about?  Some examples may be in order here.  [...]

As cold as a witch's…Freezing breast cancer tumors?

Source: Annals of Surgical Oncology; Medline It may be still in the early lab stages -how early? Well they are still testing the technique upon mice with tumors, however, researchers have found that freezing breast cancer tumors (cryoablation) helps to stop the spread of breast cancer. Not only did the rapid freezing, through application of [...]

Gene test to aid Cancer treatment

Source: BBC Health; The Lancet Oncology It is a fact of chemotherapy (chemical treatment for cancer) that some patients simply don't respond to medications. Or that they stop responding over time.  With more than 45,400 women diagnosed with breast cancer every year, scientists have been furiously trying to decode our genetic patterns for reasons such [...]

Boost for breast cancer drugs?

Source:  BBC Health; Journal Cancer Research Tamoxifen (an estrogen blocker) is currently the most prescribed drug to fight breast cancer recurrence.  However up to 1/3 of women do not respond to Tamoxifen.  The reasons for this are not completely known as of this post but are believed to lie in a gene -FGFR1. Researchers are [...]