Recent studies show that more women with cancer in one breast are opting for removal of both breasts, even though removal of the healthy breast does little to improve survival rates, New York Times columnist Tara Parker-Pope writes. In 2006, roughly 6% of women who underwent surgery for breast cancer chose to remove both the cancerous and healthy breasts, a procedure known as contralateral prophylactic mastectomy, Pope says…

Life Technologies Corporation (NASDAQ:LIFE) announced that it is collaborating with the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) and US Oncology to sequence the genomes of 14 patients afflicted with triple negative breast cancer whose tumors have progressed despite multiple other therapies. The goal of this first-of-its-kind research collaboration is to demonstrate whether genomic sequencing of cancer tissue can provide clues for treatment strategies for these individuals…

A new study has found that one in three early-stage breast cancer patients who received genomic testing when deciding about treatment options felt they did not fully understand their discussions with physicians about their test results and their risk of recurrence. About one in four experienced distress when receiving their test results. Published early online in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, the findings suggest there is room for improvement in communicating cancer recurrence risks and treatment decisions with patients…

Amber J. Belcher, a doctoral student in psychology at the University of Delaware, has won the Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The fellowship will support Belcher’s research on how couples cope with breast cancer. Breast cancer is second only to skin cancer as the most common cancer among women in the United States. According to the American Cancer Society, every year nearly 200,000 women are diagnosed with invasive breast cancer in the United States and over 40,000 die from the disease..

A new study, led by researchers at the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center, demonstrates that acupuncture may be an effective therapy for joint pain and stiffness in breast cancer patients who are being treated with commonly used hormonal therapies. Results were published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. Joint pain and stiffness are common side effects of aromatase inhibitor therapy, in which the synthesis of estrogen is blocked…

While breast cancer continues to be the second most common cancer among women in the U.S., “rates have been declining by about 2% a year since 1999, after having increased for the previous 20 years,” Newsweek contributing editor Barbara Kantrowitz and Washington correspondent Pat Wingert write in a opinion piece. The decline is “good news — but it’s also a puzzle that researchers have been trying to solve,” they continue…

Women who take some types of bone-building drugs used to prevent and treat osteoporosis may be at lower risk of breast cancer, according to a study by U.S. researchers published today in the British Journal of Cancer. The study found that women who used bisphosphonate drugs, such as Fosamax, Boniva and Zomita, for more than two years had a nearly 40 percent reduction in risk as compared to those who did not, according to lead author Polly Newcomb, Ph.D., M.P.H., head of the Cancer Prevention Program at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center…

Freezing a cancer kills it in its place, and also appears to generate an immune response that helps stop the cancer’s spread, leading to improved survival rates over surgery, according to a new study in mice from researchers at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center. Researchers looked at two different cryoablation techniques, which both involve applying a cold probe to a tumor to freeze it. The study was done in mice with breast cancer. One method involves freezing the tumor rapidly, in about 30 seconds; the other freezes the tumor slowly, taking a few minutes…

A combination of two targeted therapies already shown to be effective in breast cancer packs an effective one-two punch against a subset of gastric cancers that have a specific genetic mutation, a study at UCLA’s Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center has found. The drugs Herceptin and Tykerb when given together proved to significantly inhibit tumor growth in gastric cancers that had amplified levels of HER2, a mutation that results in an aggressive form of the disease, causing the cancers to grow and spread faster…

A patient with a breast lump that has no features suggesting cancer should still be immediately evaluated, according to a primer for physicians in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) This article provides an “in office” approach for immediate evaluation of women who present to their family physician with a breast lump. “As a family physician and a GP Oncologist who specializes in breast disease, I know how important it is to quickly evaluate breast lumps and reassure women who have benign cysts,” says author Dr. Ruth Heisey, Women’s College Hospital…