BUFFALO, N.Y. — Hypnosis can help alleviate the pain and suffering experienced by women being treated for breast cancer, according to a study by a University at Buffalo School of Social Work professor

Scientists have identified 3 genes that help breast cancer cells gain access and take root in the brain. The finding points to potential new strategies for blocking the often-deadly spread of cancer to the brain and other parts of the body.

About 90% of all cancer deaths are caused by metastatic cancer, when tumor cells break away from their original location and invade healthy tissues elsewhere. When breast cancer metastasizes, it often settles in the bones, lungs, liver or brain

THURSDAY, Jan. 1 (HealthDay News) — The proportion of people taking widely prescribed oral osteoporosis drugs who develop a nasty jaw condition may be much higher than previously thought, a new study suggests.

Previous reports had indicated that the risk of developing osteonecrosis of the jaw (ONJ) from bisphosphonates in pill form were “negligible,” although there was a noted risk in people taking the higher-dose intravenous form of the drug.

But Dr. Parish Sedghizadeh, an assistant professor of clinical dentistry at the University of Southern California School of Dentistry in Los Angeles, said his clinic is seeing one to four new cases a week, compared to one a year in the past. This led him to investigate the phenomenon and publish the findings in the Jan. 1 issue of the Journal of the American Dental Association

METASTATIC breast cancer (MBC) is breast cancer that has spread to the bone, lung, liver, brain and other organs. The median survival for patients a decade ago was 24 months. In other words, half the patients lived for less than 24 months and the other half survived more than 24 months. Few patients survived more than five years.

Today, the median survival for MBC is more like 36 months. In fact, a fortunate few may live up to 10 years or more.

Researchers from the MD Anderson Cancer Center have reported that circulating tumor cells are a strong predictor of survival in women with metastatic breast cancer. The details of this study appeared in the October 20, 2008 issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology.¹

In women with localized breast cancer, the presence of tumor cells in the bone marrow has been predictive of a worse outcome, and bone marrow examinations have been suggested as routine staging procedures. A previous multi-center trial in the U.S. has determined that women with breast cancer who have five or more circulating tumor cells have shorter progression-free and overall survivals compared to women with fewer than five circulating tumor cells (see first item of related news). In a more recent trial, researchers from France have reported that circulating tumor cells were present in 59% of women with metastatic breast cancer. They concluded that the presence of circulating tumor cells accurately predicted outcomes.

Herceptin (trastuzumab) was approved in 1998 as treatment for metastatic breast cancer, marking the beginning of the era of targeted therapies. While the drug, which targeted the HER2 receptor on the surface of breast cancer cells, became the next great hope in cancer therapy, Neil Spector, MD, was developing a small-molecule compound at GlaxoSmith-Kline called GW572016, now known as Tykerb (lapatinib).  With the success and publicity of Herceptin, Spector’s team convinced the company to test the compound in breast cancer.

By Rita Arditti

Rita Arditti is one of the founders of the Cambridge-based Women’s Community Cancer Project, a grassroots organization committed to cancer prevention. She has been living with metastatic breast cancer since 1979.

October 27, 2008  THE BOSTON GLOBE

FOR ALL the pink ribbons, breast-cancer awareness events, fund-raisers, and celebrations of “survivorship,” the facts remain grim. In this country, a woman’s lifetime risk of breast cancer is one in eight. In 1975, the risk was about one in 11.

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Outside of skin cancer, breast cancer is the most frequently diagnosed cancer in women. It is estimated that in 2008 there will be 250,230 new cases of breast cancer among women. An estimated 41,000 women will die of metastatic breast cancer in 2008. Because we still do not know what the causes of breast cancer are, primary prevention remains an elusive goal while mammography and early detection are the focus of attention.

Since World War II, the proliferation of synthetic chemicals has gone hand-in-hand with the increased incidence of breast cancer. About 80,000 synthetic chemicals are used today in the United States, and their number increases by about 1,000 each year. Only about 7 percent of them have been screened for their health effects. These chemicals can persist in the environment and accumulate in our bodies. According to a recent review by the Silent Spring Institute in Newton, 216 chemicals and radiation sources cause breast cancer in animals.

Despite the many cytotoxic agents, such as the taxanes and anthracyclines, that are available to treat metastatic breast cancer, resistance to these agents will develop in some women that will require other therapies. Ideally, such therapies will maintain quality of life, while prolonging progression-free and overall survival. This is also true for the many women who receive endocrine therapy as first-line treatment for their metastatic disease but in whom resistance to these therapies will invariably develop.

Ongoing discussion about optimizing treatment in this setting includes controversial issues such as the relative efficacy of single-agent sequential therapy vs combination therapy; in whom to use bevacizumab; and, appropriate use of new agents such as ixabepilone, an epothilone analog approved in October 2007 by the United States Food and Drug Administration for treatment of refractory metastatic disease.

The addition of Nexavar® (sorafenib) to Arimidex® (anastrozole) helps restore sensitivity to Arimidex among women with breast cancer. These results were recently presented at the 2008 annual American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) breast cancer symposium.The majority of breast cancers are hormone positive, meaning that the cancer cells are stimulated to grow from exposure to the female hormones estrogen and/or progesterone. Women with hormone-positive breast cancer receive hormone therapy, which prevents estrogen from forming in the body or blocks the exposure of cancer cells to estrogen. 

Arimidex is a hormone therapy that prevents the formation of estrogen in the body. It is commonly used among postmenopausal women with hormone-positive breast cancer. Unfortunately, some women can become resistant to Arimidex, meaning that their cancer continues to grow despite treatment, whereas others may never respond to Arimidex. Reasons for this lack of response are not clear. Researchers continue to evaluate ways to work around this resistance, such as targeting other biologic pathways associated with cancer.

Nexavar is an agent that has multiple targets involved in several biologic pathways associated with cancer. Used alone, Nexavar has not demonstrated anticancer responses in the treatment of breast cancer; however, researchers have speculated that Nexavar may aid in reversing the resistance to Arimidex or other hormone agents.

(HealthNewsDigest.com) - Even cells commute. To get from their birthplace to their work site, they sequentially attach to and detach from an elaborate track of exceptionally strong proteins known as the extracellular matrix. Now, in research to appear in the October 3 issue of Cell, scientists at Rockefeller University show that a molecule, called ACF7, helps regulate and power this movement from the inside — findings that could have implications for understanding how cancer cells metastasize