Breast Cancer

Three years after they stopped hormone replacement therapy, women who took the drugs still had a 27% higher risk of developing breast cancer than those who took a placebo, researchers reported today. The women were participants in the Women's Health Initiative, halted abruptly in 2002 when researchers found that the doses of estrogen and progestin increased patients' risk for heart disease, stroke and breast cancer.

Genentech Inc. on Friday raised the lower end of its 2008 forecast on increasing demand for the cancer drug Avastin. Shares of the biotechnology company fell $2.60, or just over 3%, to $78.83 "because they didn't raise the high end" of the forecast range, said Michael King, an analyst with Rodman & Renshaw Inc. in New York. Genentech expects to earn $3.35 to $3.45 a share in 2008, excluding some expenses, the South San Francisco-based company said. That's up from its previous forecast of $3.30 to $3.45, excluding certain expenses such as employee stock options.

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."

At age 35, Jessica Queller was the kind of woman it's hard not to envy. Bright, funny and attractive, she was a TV writer with a great Hollywood gig and many friends. Yet one sunny morning, Queller faced an overwhelming decision. A few months earlier, without much forethought, she'd taken a blood test for the BRCA "breast cancer gene" mutations. She was so confident she'd test negative that she skipped any genetic counseling beforehand. On that morning in 2004, Queller called the lab from her desk at "Gilmore Girls" and was told by a gruff voice that she'd tested positive for the BRCA1 mutation.

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.

It seems hard to believe in this era of pink ribbons -- when young women sport "save the ta-tas" T-shirts and high-profile breast cancer survivors like Nancy Reagan and Sheryl Crow go public with their stories. But a generation ago, a woman's fight with breast cancer was a lonely and secret struggle. "Women were quiet about it," recalled Dave Calderwood, a Downey firefighter whose late wife, Lynette, was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1986. "It was a private thing -- 'That's your breast.

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.