Breast Cancer

A small trial of an experimental vaccine designed to activate the immune system against breast cancer suggests it may reduce the risk of death for most patients, U.S. military researchers said Sunday. The vaccine, designed to treat women with tumors that generate a protein called HER-2, has been licensed to privately held Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Apthera Inc. under the brand name NeuVax.

When I was in my 20s, conversations with friends often focused on relationships and career; in my 30s, more often than not we talked about children. Now I'm in my 40s, and the topic of cancer seems to be creeping into our discussions with surprising frequency. "When I was younger, I don't remember so many people being diagnosed with cancer," says Lisa Gross, whom I've known since my children were young. "Now it seems that every other day, you hear about someone getting it."

I had no choice. When I was diagnosed with stage III breast cancer, my course of action was already in place. Chemotherapy, surgery, radiation. I chose my doctors and I chose my wig, but other than that I did exactly what traditional medicine prescribed. Jessica Queller had too many choices. In her compelling memoir, "Pretty Is What Changes," she does not have cancer. She is young and healthy, with a fabulous career and a full life.

Women who had a vitamin D deficiency when they were diagnosed with breast cancer were 94% more likely to have their cancer metastasize and 73% more likely to die within 10 years, Canadian researchers reported Thursday. The team also found that only 24% of the women in its study had what are normally considered adequate levels of vitamin D at the time of the diagnosis. The study represents "the first time that vitamin D has been linked to breast cancer progression," said Dr.

What's new: The risk of breast cancer is apparently higher in populations living far from the equator than it is for those in the sunny tropics. The finding: Researchers at UC San Diego reported in the recent issue of the Breast Journal that in countries where people are exposed to high levels of ultraviolet B (UVB) radiation from the sun, breast cancer rates are lower than in countries where UVB levels are low.

Dr. George E. Moore, the cancer researcher who was among the first to link chewing tobacco to mouth cancer and who built the Roswell Park Memorial Institute in Buffalo, N.Y., into a major cancer research center, died May 19 in Conifer, Colo. He was 88. The cause of death was bladder cancer, according to his family.

October is breast cancer month -- a time to reflect on both the great strides made against the disease and the awful toll it still takes. But in 2008, another sort of breast cancer-related phenomenon is on many minds. In the wake of former Sen. John Edwards' confession of unfaithfulness earlier this year, many people may be wondering: How does a wife's cancer diagnosis affect a marriage?

"Living Proof" is a new Lifetime TV docudrama about Dr. Dennis Slamon and the development of the drug Herceptin, which has had great success in extending the lives of women with a particularly aggressive form of breast cancer.

Now that we've spent the month of October scaring women about breast cancer, isn't it time for a month scaring them about mammography? If not a month, a week? A day? It's not right to scare people, but it's also not right to leave them in the dark about an important debate going on in the medical community. While all agree that a mammogram is an important diagnostic test for women with new breast lumps, its use as a routine screening test is more contentious.

Taking menopause hormones for five years doubles the risk for breast cancer, according to a new analysis of a big federal study that reveals the most dramatic evidence yet of the dangers of these popular pills. Even women who took estrogen and progestin pills for just a couple of years had a greater chance of getting cancer. But when they stopped, their odds quickly improved, returning to a normal risk level about two years later.