Posts Tagged ‘cancer centre’
Written by Rahul on 20 February 2009
London, Feb 20 (ANI): Brit experts have cautioned that repeated breast screening tests could lead to unnecessary treatment while women remain ignorant of the risks.
Attacking the Government’s “unethical” leaflets for mammograms, they have said that these pieces of paper “do not come close to telling the truth.”
Twenty-three leading specialists have warned that breast cancer screening can lead to patients being given unnecessary surgery or chemotherapy.
They also claimed that in case cancers detected by the programme were left alone, many “might never appear in a woman’s natural lifespan.”
The warning comes in line with an analysis by the Nordic Cochrane Centre, which found that if 2,000 women were screened for ten years, 10 would be treated unnecessarily.
And a warning letter, signed by public health specialists, epidemiologists, oncologists, GPs and patient representatives, has been sent to the Times newspaper.
The criticism follows the warning by doctors that recent trends to reduce the physical marks caused by breast cancer surgery risk “losing some of the gain in survival” seen in the past decade.
And experts have cautioned that the stress on ensuring that breast surgery does not look unsightly may be at the risk of survival rates.
Monica Morrow, chief of the Breast Service at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Centre in New York, said that minimally invasive surgery might not be the best for patients.
“Failure to demand a rigorous evaluation of oncological outcomes as well as cosmetic ones runs the risk of losing some of the gains in survival seen in the past decade,” the Telegraph quoted her as writing in the British Medical Journal.
She added: “The local treatment of breast cancer is based on the results of numerous high quality clinical trials and is therefore a model for evidence based care. As we attempt to advance from good to great cosmetic outcomes it is important that we remember this.” (ANI)
Tags: breast cancer, breast cancer screening, breast cancer surgery, breast screening, breast surgery, british medical journal, cancer centre, cosmetic outcomes, london feb, memorial sloan kettering, Monica Morrow, natural lifespan, nordic cochrane centre, patient representatives, public health specialists, rigorous evaluation, sloan kettering cancer, treatment of breast cancer, unnecessary surgery, unnecessary treatment
Posted in Education | 1 Comment »
Written by Rahul on 27 January 2009
Washington, Jan 27 (ANI): Researchers from The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Centre have identified certain risk factors that may help predict the likelihood of patients developing breast cancer in the opposite breast.
These risk factors may help women who are diagnosed with breast cancer make the difficult decision about whether to have their second breast removed as a preventive step.
“Women often consider contralateral prophylactic mastectomy (CPM) not because of medical recommendation, but because they fear having their breast cancer return,” said Kelly Hunt, M.D., professor in the Department of Surgical Oncology at M. D. Anderson and lead author on the study.
“Currently it is very difficult to identify which patients are at enough risk to benefit from this aggressive and irreversible procedure. Our goal was to determine what characteristics defined these high-risk patients to better inform future decisions regarding CPM,” she added.
During the study, the researchers reviewed the cases of 542 women with breast cancer only in one breast who received CPM to remove the second breast.
Out of this group, 435 patients had no abnormal pathology identified in the opposite breast, 25 patients had contralateral breast cancer identified at surgery, and 82 patients had abnormal cells that indicate a moderate to high-risk for breast cancer development in the contralateral breast found at the time of surgery.
Further analysis of the patients with contralateral breast cancer revealed that a five-year Gail risk of 1.67 percent or greater; an invasive lobular histology; and multiple tumours in the original breast were all strong predictors for contralateral breast cancer.
However, patient race, estrogen receptor status and progesterone receptor status were not associated with increased risk.
“We went from having very little information on the benefit of this procedure for individual patients to identifying three independent and significant risk factors,” Hunt said.
“Each provides valuable insight into how likely a woman is to develop the disease in her other breast and enables physicians to make an educated recommendation if a patient will potentially benefit from CPM.
“We’ve always known contralateral breast cancer risk is not the same for all women and it is unnecessary to perform preventive mastectomies routinely.
“As we begin to clarify the specific risk factors, the number of women undergoing CPM may decrease and those with a low to moderate-risk may be more open to less extreme options for risk reduction, such as hormonal therapy and newer agents for prevention of breast cancer,” she added.
The findings are published in journal Cancer. (ANI)
Tags: abnormal cells, breast cancer, cancer centre, cancer development, CPM, difficult decision, estrogen receptor, high risk, histology, m d anderson, mastectomy, medical recommendation, patient race, preventive step, progesterone, risk factors, risk for breast cancer, risk patients, surgical oncology, tumours
Posted in Education | No Comments »
Written by Rahul on 25 January 2009
London, Jan 22 (ANI): Consuming three cups of tea a day can reduce the risk of breast cancer by more than a third, a new research led by an Indian-origin scientist has revealed.
To reach the conclusion, a team of US researchers led by Dr Nagi Kumar at the Moffitt Cancer Centre in Tampa, Florida, studied 5,000 women aged between 20 and 74 who had been treated for breast cancer.
The boffins compared medical histories and lifestyles with a similar group of women free of breast cancer, reports the Telegraph.
From the analysis, they also found even greater benefits when it came to “lobular” breast cancer, with tea reducing the risk by 66 per cent.
Lobular cancer, where cancer affects the lobes deep inside breast tissue, accounts for one in ten cases of the disease.
The researchers said: “Regular tea consumption, particularly at moderately high levels, might reduce breast cancer risk in younger women.
“Given that tea is the most common beverage consumed in the world, it makes an attractive candidate for breast cancer prevention.” (ANI)
Tags: attractive candidate, boffins, breast cancer, breast cancer prevention, breast cancer risk, breast tissue, cancer centre, group of women, indian origin, lobes, lobular breast cancer, lobular cancer, london jan, medical histories, moffitt cancer, nagi, similar group, tampa florida, tea consumption, younger women
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