Word: breast
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...many ways, the story began four years ago when researchers halted a different part of the WHI--one that looked at the long-term health effects of taking the hormone combination estrogen and progestin (Prempro)--because of an increased risk of breast cancer and heart disease. (Women with a uterus who want to try hormone therapy must take both hormones because estrogen alone increases the risk of uterine cancer.) Two years later, the estrogen-only (Premarin) part of the trial, which focused on nearly 11,000 postmenopausal women who had undergone a hysterectomy, was stopped because of a slightly greater...
...should reassure a lot of women. There is still no scientific justification for the long-term use of hormones after menopause to prevent such conditions as heart disease or dementia. But a shorter course of estrogen--seven years or less--is safe enough with respect to breast cancer and other health risks that it's a reasonable option for the treatment of severe menopausal symptoms. In other words, says Marcia Stefanick, one of the lead researchers, since there is no overriding safety concern, "the focus should be on your individual risk...
Here's where things get tricky. A closer look at the findings shows that women who have had a benign breast ailment, who score high on the so-called Gail model of breast-cancer risks or whose mother or sister had breast cancer are slightly more likely to develop breast cancer when taking estrogen supplements. In addition, all study participants, regardless of their breast-cancer risk, were more likely to have suspicious-looking mammograms that required biopsies to make sure that nothing was wrong...
...have severe menopausal symptoms, have lost your uterus and don't have a high risk of developing breast cancer or blood clots, you can safely consider estrogen therapy for temporary relief. Eventually, as genetic tests based on blood samples from WHI participants start to be developed, investigators should be able to say even more precisely who is likely to benefit from estrogen treatment and who should avoid it. Meanwhile, stay tuned for more surprising WHI results...
...City of Hope Cancer Center in Duarte, Calif., announced that they had isolated a group of stem cell--like cells in lungs that seed the abnormal growth of small-cell lung cancers. Scientists at Stanford University took the concept even further. They were able to isolate stem cells from breast-cancer tumors and identify a genetic signature that allowed them to predict the progression of the disease. "Everybody wants to talk about cancer stem cells now," says John Dick, a University of Toronto professor and one of the leading researchers in the field. "From funding agencies to institutions to scientists...