New 'Pill' to Help Prevent Breast Cancer

Women at a high-risk of suffering from breast cancer may benefit from a new pill that could help prevent the disease. 

Doctors were given the go-ahead to prescribe the drug in a move hailed by experts as a "game changer".

Women with a family history of the illness will get the drug, costing less than 7 pence a day, after new guidance by the NHS medicines watchdog, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, the Daily Express reported. 

Baroness Delyth Morgan, chief executive of Breast Cancer Campaign, said that this is a truly historic moment in the treatment of women at increased risk of breast cancer. 

The drug, either in the form of tamoxifen or raloxifene, could help more than 488,000 women in England and Wales dramatically slash their risk of breast cancer. 

It would be taken in much the same way that daily cholesterol-busting statins are taken by millions of people to stave off heart attacks and stroke. 

Nice updated its guidelines on tamoxifen and raloxifene for particular groups of women and men after a string of scientific studies showed the drugs can stop people getting breast cancer if taken for five years. 

The treatment will be offered to women aged 35 and over deemed to have a high risk (more than 30 percent) or moderate risk (17 to 30 percent) of contracting the illness.

Source-ANI

'Cancer Prevention' - In Your Hands

Cancer - A disease that could wipe the smile off many faces and cause the deepest anguish is preventable. It is not an exaggeration that 43% of all cancers are preventable. Sunday, 4 February 2007, is World Cancer Day, embodying the theme - "Today's Children, Tomorrow's World" will focus on strategies for a cancer free world - a precious gift to our dear children.

Cancer is caused due to the unchecked growth of abnormal cells. There are nearly 100 types of cancers, which could afflict any part of the body. The most common types of cancers are - Lung cancer, stomach cancer, liver cancer, colon cancer, and breast cancer. More than 7 million people die each year due to cancer with 70% of the deaths occurring in developing countries. Further, 11 million new cases of cancer world-wide are added each year.

The main objective of the 'World Cancer Day' campaign is to disseminate crucial information about cancer, with focus on 'prevention'. The worldwide campaign will make an appeal to parents, healthcare professionals and policy decision-makers, to go the extra mile towards inculcating healthy lifestyle habits in children, so that they grow up to be healthy adults.

Tobacco and Cancer: A smoke-free environment forms the basic premise of any cancer prevention programme. Nearly 30% of all cancer deaths are caused by the use of tobacco in any form. In the year 2006, almost 5 million people world-wide died due to cancer caused by tobacco. Most of the lung cancers in the world today boil down to the use of tobacco. Statistics show that in several regions of the world, more than 30 percent of children have experimented with tobacco products before they have turned 10. Amid such a scenario, children must be taught about the ill-effects of smoking, use of tobacco and it's far reaching repercussions on health. It might be a good idea for policymakers to enforce higher taxes on tobacco products, to discourage many smokers from the habit. The campaign seeks to bring to the fore, the importance of providing children an environment that is tobacco-free.

Obesity and cancers: Overweight and obesity are important causative factors of certain cancers - esophagus, colon, kidney, breast and endometrium. To prevent overweight and obesity, the importance of healthy diet, with an abundance of fruits and vegetables, coupled with regular exercise, cannot be over emphasized.

Chronic Infection and cancers: Nearly one-fifth of all cancers in the world are triggered by chronic infection. The hepatitis B virus (HBV) could cause cirrhosis of the liver and liver cancer, which is the cause of one million deaths annually. An important facet of every cancer prevention program includes immunization programs for children, which enable maximum protection against such cancers. Nearly, 500,000 cases of cervical cancer diagnosed every year are due to a sexually transmitted virus. About 80 percent of all cervical cancers are reported from developing countries where routine screening, pap smears or treatment is wanting in many aspects. Cervical cancer can be prevented with vaccinations against the human papillomavirus (HPV) and the hepatitis B virus (HBV), capable of offering protection against cervical and liver cancers respectively. It is important to vaccinate girls and young women against the human papillomavirus (HPV) infections, and protect against cervical cancer. Significantly, because both viruses are transmitted through sexual contact, educating children and teenagers about the risks of disease and safe sexual behavior forms an integral part of cancer prevention.

Ultraviolet rays and cancers: Overexposure to the sun is the cause of many types of skin cancers due to the harmful effects of ultra-violet rays. Nearly 3 million non- melanoma skin cancers and 132,000 malignant melanomas are reported world-wide each year. Regular exposure to sun and sunburn during childhood can increase the risk of melanoma in adulthood. White people who expose themselves for prolonged periods under the sun to get tanned are at special risks. Using protective clothing, hats and sunscreen can help protect against the harmful radiation.

A significant aspect of cancer prevention involves educating people, especially children, about the extended benefits of maintaining a healthy weight, staying physically active and avoiding abuse of alcohol. The above factors are also risk factors for other diseases such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Therefore a cancer prevention program can be a panacea for prevention of many other lifestyle diseases as well.

Source-Medindia

New Breast Cancer Test Will Help More Women Avoid Unnecessary Chemotherapy

A new genetic test for one of the most common forms of breast cancer will help doctors better identify those women who should be considered for chemotherapy, and those who can avoid it, say researchers.

A team at The Institute of Cancer Research, London, The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust and Queen Mary University of London found that the test - called PAM50 - produced better long-term information than current methods for determining if a patient's breast cancer would return.

The test, which can be processed locally instead of being sent off to an American lab, indentifies more women with the highest risk of their breast cancer returning, with fewer women classed as at intermediate risk.

The new test could therefore help doctors identify with greater certainty the women who will have the most potential of benefitting from chemotherapy, while letting others avoid unnecessary treatment.

The research, published today (Monday) in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, was funded by Breakthrough Breast Cancer, AstraZeneca and the NIHR Biomedical Research Centre at The Royal Marsden, with additional support from Cancer Research UK.

Breast cancer is diagnosed in 50,000 women every year, with 80% of cases caused by oestrogen receptor positive (ER+) disease. Women with this type of breast cancer can be treated with hormone therapy, but for some women, the risk of their breast cancer coming back within 10 years means they are also given chemotherapy.

Currently, a test called Oncotype DX (1) can assess the likelihood of a patient's breast cancer returning, but the test costs more than £2,000 per patient to be administered privately and samples must be sent abroad to be processed. The current test also identifies a large portion of women as having 'intermediate risk', making a doctor's decision of whether chemotherapy will help more difficult.

In this study, scientists assessed RNA in tissue samples taken from 940 patients with ER+ breast cancer and compared the new PAM50 score, which analyses 50 genes linked with breast cancer, with the Oncotype DX test, and with a test called IHC4, developed by Breakthrough Breast Cancer.

The PAM50 test provided more long-term predictive information for doctors than both the Oncotype DX test and IHC4, while being as effective as other tests in identifying women at low risk of their breast cancer recurring.

Notably, the PAM50 test categorised more patients as having a high risk of their breast cancer returning within 10 years and fewer as intermediate than the other two tests. The researchers said the PAM50 test could therefore be a more cost-effective tool while providing doctors with more relevant information for determining which breast cancer patients will benefit most from chemotherapy.

Professor Mitch Dowsett, Professor of Biochemical Endocrinology at The Institute of Cancer Research and Head of Biochemistry at The Royal Marsden, said: "Chemotherapy is often used after surgery to reduce the risk of a patient's breast cancer coming back, but the side-effects are significant and some women will not see any benefit. While the current test is useful for both patients and clinicians to help them decide whether chemotherapy is needed, it's expensive and not available locally.

"Our study found that the PAM50 test is more effective than other methods at providing the information to exclude breast cancer patients from unnecessary chemotherapy, and has the potential to be done more quickly. For each sub-group of breast cancer the PAM50 test added significant information beyond that of the standard clinical treatment score and the Oncotype DX score combined."

Professor Alan Ashworth, Chief Executive of The Institute of Cancer Research, said: "The great strides that have been made in breast cancer treatment have resulted in a large rise in survival from the disease, but some women receive treatment which can be arduous while receiving no benefit. This test will improve doctors' knowledge of who might benefit, allowing more women to make better informed decisions on their treatment."

Breakthrough Breast Cancer's Director of Research Julia Wilson said: "The PAM50 test has been proven to be an effective way of helping clinicians ensure that women do not have to undergo chemotherapy treatment that will not have any medical benefit, when their risk of cancer recurrence is in fact very low. This will mean that, where appropriate, women will be able to avoid the toxic side effects of chemotherapy.

"We're aiming to reach a stage where all breast cancer patients receive the most appropriate treatment for them, and this Research from Mitch and his team is an important step in that direction."

 Source: Medicalnewstoday.com