Breast cancer incidence declined among postmenopausal women in Canada as their use of hormone therapy declined, according to a study published online September 23 in The Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

The Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) trial of more than 16,000 postmenopausal women in the United States reported in 2002 that the risks of combined estrogen and progestin hormone replacement therapy outweighed the benefits. As a result, prescriptions for hormone therapy fell dramatically in several countries around the world and so did the incidence of breast cancer.

To determine whether a similar decline of hormone therapy use and breast cancer incidence occurred in Canada, Prithwish De, Ph.D., of the Canadian Cancer Society, and colleagues, analyzed data from various Canadian registries and from a national health survey for women aged 50-69 years. Specifically, the researchers looked at information on prescriptions for hormone replacement therapy, breast cancer incidence, mammography rates, and self-reported use of hormone replacement therapy.

The researchers found that “the nearly 10% drop in invasive breast cancer rates coincided with the decline in use of hormone replacement therapy reported among Canadian women aged 50-69 years.” The steepest decline in use occurred between 2002 and 2004, when use dropped from 12.7% to 4.9%. In that same period, breast cancer incidence dropped 9.6% but mammography rates remained stable.

The researchers write that the decline in breast cancer incidence “is likely explained by the concurrent decline in the use of hormone replacement therapy among Canadian women.” They also say the drop in hormone therapy use may be partly explained by the media’s coverage of results of both the WHI and the Million Women Study in the U.K., both of which showed that breast cancer risk was elevated with the use of combined hormone therapy. In Canada, cancer rates began to increase again in 2005 among women aged 50-69 years, which might be further evidence of a link between hormone therapy and breast cancer, according to the authors.

“Such a rebound might be expected if occult hormone-sensitive tumors were merely slowed by the withdrawal of hormone replacement therapy rather than prevented by it. If so, hormone replacement therapy may be thought to act as a promoter, rather than a cause of breast cancer,” they write.

The study’s limitations include the fact that data on hormone replacement therapy use was self-reported – and therefore subject to recall bias – and that data on frequency or duration of use were not collected. Also, data on receptor status of breast tumors were not collected.

In conclusion, the authors write that “further long-term surveillance studies of trends between hormone replacement therapy and breast cancer incidence can help reconcile the potential population-level associations of these two factors.”

Source: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/202401.php

Breast cancer patients who are currently undergoing treatment may want to consider acupuncture, as a new study suggests it could reduce their hot flashes and boost their libido.

While previous studies indicated that nutritional supplements could increase a female’s sex drive, acupuncture offers multiple benefits for those who are experiencing side effects from their treatment.

New findings from a study in the Journal of Oncology, reveal that acupuncture actually has more benefits than side effects for breast cancer patients, as opposed to some drug therapies that doctors recommend.

While drug therapy may be effective, some patients may experience side effects such as dry mouth, decreased appetite and nausea.

Approximately 50 breast cancer patients were recruited to either undergo acupuncture or drug therapy treatment over a 12-week period to determine the benefits.

Researchers discovered that both groups experienced 50 percent less hot flashes and depressive symptoms, which often leads to a lack of sex drive.

Findings also revealed that women who were on the drug therapy began receiving an increased amount of hot flashes two weeks after treatment, while acupuncture patients didn’t experience a rise until three months after treatment.R

An April 2009 study by Jessica Dolle et al. of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center examining the relationship between oral contraceptives (OCs) and triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) in women under age 45 contained an admission from U.S. National Cancer Institute (NCI) researcher Louise Brinton and her colleagues (including Janet Daling) that abortion raises breast cancer risk by 40%. [1]

Additionally, Dolle’s team showed that women who start OCs before age 18 multiply their risk of TNBC by 3.7 times and recent users of OCs within the last one to five years multiply their risk by 4.2 times. TNBC is an aggressive form of breast cancer associated with high mortality.

“Although the study was published nine months ago,” observed Karen Malec, president of the Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer, “the NCI, the American Cancer Society, Susan G. Komen for the Cure and other cancer fundraising businesses have made no efforts to reduce breast cancer rates by issuing nationwide warnings to women.”

Brinton was the chief organizer of the 2003 NCI workshop on the abortion-breast cancer link, which falsely assured women that the non-existence of the link was “well established.” [2]

Dolle’s team reported in Table 1 a statistically significant 40% risk increase for women who have had abortions. They listed abortion among “known and suspected risk factors.”

Brinton and Daling had previously studied this population from the Seattle-Puget Sound area in the 1990s and reported risk increases between 20% and 50% among women with abortions. [3,4] In the 2009 study, they and their co-authors wrote that their findings concerning induced abortion, OC use and certain other risk factors, “were consistent with the effects observed in previous studies on younger women.”

“Obviously, more women will die of breast cancer if the NCI fails in its duty to warn about the risks of OCs and abortion and if government funds are used to pay for both as a part of any healthcare bill,” said Mrs. Malec.

A brief analysis of the study (click here) , Dolle et al. 2009, was provided by Dr. Joel Brind, professor of biology and endocrinology and deputy chair for biology at Baruch College, City University of New York.

Last year, studies from Turkey and China also reported statistically significant risk increases for women who had abortions. [5,6]

The Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer is an international women’s organization founded to protect the health and save the lives of women by educating and providing information on abortion as a risk factor for breast cancer.

Scientists have shown how a family of “limpet-like” proteins play a crucial role in repairing the DNA damage which can lead to cancer.

They hope the finding could pave the way for a new type of drug which could help kill cancer cells, and promote production of healthy replacements.

The proteins seem to have a remarkable ability to zero in on damaged areas.

The breakthrough, uncovered independently by two teams, appears in the journal Nature.

The family of Small Ubiquitin-like Modifier (SUMO) proteins track down sites in the body where DNA damage has occurred.

They attach themselves to normal proteins, and guide them in to fix the genetic faults.

Using this method, the proteins are even able to repair double strand DNA breaks – the most severe type of DNA damage.

When their work is done, the proteins detach themselves and move on.

Breast cancer gene

One of the study teams was able to follow this process of repair taking place on the BRCA1 gene, which, if damaged, is associated with a very high risk of breast cancer.

SUMO was shown to attach to the damaged gene, and switch it back on – helping prevent breast cancer forming.

Researcher Dr Jo Morris, from King’s College London, said: “This new insight is the first step towards developing drugs which may protect normal cells from the side effects of chemotherapy, or improve the effectiveness of current breast cancer treatments.”

Dr Lesley Walker, of Cancer Research UK, which part-funded the study, said: “DNA damage, particularly double strand DNA breaks, are a fundamental cause of cancer and we know that people who have mutations in the BRCA1 gene have a higher risk of developing some kinds of cancer.

“Discovering that these limpet-like proteins play such an important role in repair may provide new opportunities to stop cancer from growing.”

But she added: “This is an extremely complex and intricate biological process so it may be many years before we can use this knowledge to safely intervene and help treat cancer patients.”

“Soy foods are rich in isoflavones, a major group of phytoestrogens that have been hypothesized to reduce the risk of breast cancer. However, the estrogen-like effect of isoflavones and the potential interaction between isoflavones and tamoxifen have led to concern about soy food consumption among breast cancer patients,” the authors write.

Xiao Ou Shu, M.D., Ph.D., of Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, Tenn., and colleagues examined the association between soy isoflavone intake with breast cancer recurrence and survival. The researchers analyzed data from the Shanghai Breast Cancer Survival Study, a large, population-based study of 5,042 female breast cancer survivors in China. Women ages 20 to 75 years with diagnoses of breast cancer between March 2002 and April 2006 were recruited and followed up through June 2009.

Information on cancer diagnosis and treatment, lifestyle exposures after cancer diagnosis, and disease progression was collected at approximately 6 months after cancer diagnosis and was reassessed at three follow-up interviews conducted at 18, 36, and 60 months after diagnosis. A Shanghai Vital Statistics Registry database was used to obtain survival information for participants who were lost to follow-up.

After a median (midpoint) follow-up of 3.9 years, 444 total deaths and 534 recurrences or breast cancer-related deaths were documented among the group of 5,033 surgically-treated breast cancer patients. Soy food intake, as measured by either soy protein or soy isoflavone intake, was inversely associated with mortality and recurrence. P

atients in the group with the highest intake of soy protein had a 29 percent lower risk of death during the study period, and a 32 percent lower risk of breast cancer recurrence compared to patients with the lowest intake of soy protein. The adjusted 4-year mortality rates were 10.3 percent and 7.4 percent and the 4-year recurrence rates were 11.2 percent and 8.0 percent, respectively, for women with the lowest and highest groups of soy protein intake.

“The inverse association was evident among women with either estrogen receptor-positive or -negative breast cancer and was present in both users and nonusers of tamoxifen,” the researchers write.

“In summary, in this population-based prospective study, we found that soy food intake is safe and was associated with lower mortality and recurrence among breast cancer patients. The association of soy food intake with mortality and recurrence appears to follow a linear dose-response pattern until soy food intake reached 11 grams/day of soy protein; no additional benefits on mortality and recurrence were observed with higher intakes of soy food. This study suggests that moderate soy food intake is safe and potentially beneficial for women with breast cancer.”

Ewertz and colleagues examined the influence of obesity on the risk of breast cancer recurrence and mortality in relation to adjuvant treatment. She presented study results at the CTRC-AACR Annual San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, held Dec. 9-13.

Using the Danish Breast Cancer Cooperative Group database, they evaluated health information — such as status at diagnosis, tumor size, malignancy grade, number of lymph nodes removed, estrogen receptor status, treatment regimen, etc. — from almost 54,000 women. Ewertz and colleagues were able to calculate BMI for 35 percent of the women, whose information about height and weight was available. A healthy, normal BMI score is between 20 and 25; a score below the normal range indicates underweight and a score above indicates overweight.

After 30 years of follow-up (from 1977 through 2006), the researchers found that women with higher BMIs were older and had more advanced disease at diagnosis compared with those who had a BMI within the normal range. The risk of distant metastases increased the higher the BMI. However, BMI played no role in loco-regional recurrence.

Women with a high BMI had an increased risk of dying from breast cancer, a finding that remained constant over the study period. Further, adjuvant treatment seemed to lose its effect more rapidly in obese patients, according to Ewertz.

“More research is needed into the mechanisms behind the poorer response to adjuvant treatment among obese women with breast cancer,” she said.

Researchers with the University of Rochester Medical Center followed 166 women undergoing treatment for breast cancer and found that nearly 70 percent had low levels of vitamin D in their blood. The insufficient levels could contribute to decreased bone mass and increased risk of bone fractures.

“Vitamin D is essential to maintaining bone health, and women with breast cancer have accelerated bone loss due to the nature of hormone therapy and chemotherapy. It’s important for women and their doctors to work together to boost their vitamin D intake,” said Dr. Luke Peppone from Rochester’s James P. Wilmot Cancer Center.

Previous studies have shown that nearly half of all men and women are deficient in the nutrient.

In addition to nutritional supplements, vitamin D can be obtained from milk, fortified cereals and exposure to sunlight.