Word: oncologist
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...extra copies are a bad omen. Patients that have them suffer three times the rate of cancer recurrence of other patients, says UCLA oncologist Dr. $ Dennis Slamon. Such patients, he says, should "absolutely" get further treatment. But one genetic abnormality is not enough to transform healthy, law-abiding breast cells into anarchic tumors. "The genes responsible for this disease are like pieces of a patchwork quilt," says geneticist Mary- Claire King of the University of California, Berkeley. The patchwork pattern may vary from one woman to the next, but each case probably involves five or six separate mutations occurring over...
...mammogram revealed a bright malignant spot, no more than 1.5 cm (about 0.6 in.) across, imbedded in the translucent tissue of her left breast. A surgeon recommended a mastectomy, to be followed by chemotherapy. Fallscheer was appalled. She sought a second opinion from David August, a surgical oncologist at the University of Michigan Medical Center, who told her that her tiny malignancy made her an ideal candidate for a lumpectomy, a less drastic procedure...
...about 2- in.) scar in an otherwise normal-looking breast. To catch any residual cancer cells, she received six weeks of daily radiation therapy, which produced a light suntan but left no permanent trace. "A lumpectomy plus radiation does not cure more women than mastectomy," says radiation oncologist Allen Lichter of the University of Michigan, "but it creates fewer physical and emotional scars." Fallscheer concurs: "It was only after I saw Dr. August that I felt I wasn't going to die after...
Such high-dose therapy is perilous. Until the transplanted marrow replenishes the patient's supply of white blood cells, she is highly vulnerable to infection. Jacob Bitran, Crossley's oncologist, believes that the procedure is worth the risk. He and his associates have treated 67 advanced breast-cancer patients in this manner over the past four years. Though 11 have died of complications, mostly infections, 16 are in complete remission, seemingly disease free. "That means 1 in every 4 is a long-term survivor," he says. Others are not persuaded. "I am not convinced that we have the benefits...
...laboratory cultures had all contained the same number of microscopic cancer cells. Now even an untutored eye could tell the difference. Globs of wildly dividing cell colonies filled half the flasks, while in the others the cells refused to multiply. Reason: a research team, led by Johns Hopkins University oncologist Bert Vogelstein, had endowed the quiescent cells with a protective device that the dividing ones lacked, in this case a normal copy of a gene that acts as a circuit breaker, shutting down growth. The scientists had found a way, at least in theory, to stop a tumor after...