Breast Cancer

Dr. Susan Love, renowned surgeon and former director of the Revlon/UCLA Breast Center, will give a speech tonight titled "The Life and Times of Dr. Susan Love." Love, who holds an adjunct university appointment at UCLA to research methods of early detection for breast cancer, wrote "Dr. Susan Love's Breast Book," which has sold 300,000 copies since its release in 1990. Love also plans to have a book out in February that takes a critical look at female hormone replacement therapy.

Low-income women who are 50 and older can have free breast cancer screenings Jan. 18 from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. The program is sponsored by Brea's Youth and Family Services, the YMCA of Orange County's Encore Plus Program and the Orange County Breast Cancer Partnership. Information and location: (714) 871-4488.

Women ages 40 to 49 are less likely to have breast tumors detected by mammography screening than women over 50, especially if they have a family history of breast cancer, according to a UC San Francisco study in the July 3 Journal of the American Medical Assn. The study, examining 28,271 women from 1985 to 1992, showed that about 75% of the women age 40 to 49 with tumors had them detected by mammography compared with 93% of women over 50.

For 49 years, Rose Hsu lived a Chinese-American dream. The daughter of immigrants, she coasted through childhood in San Francisco's Chinatown, excelled in school, married a doctor and moved to the suburbs. She cherished her children, her home and everything that marked her as an American woman.

Researchers at the Columbia University School of Public Health announced they will begin a study of newly diagnosed breast cancer patients to try to determine whether pesticides, auto exhaust and other chemical irritants are responsible for Long Island's high rates of breast cancer. The study will examine blood and urine samples donated by about 1,600 patients plus those of a control group of 1,600 healthy women. Researchers, who will recruit participants for one year beginning Aug.

BioSource International of Camarillo is initiating a study to investigate the feasibility of developing a test capable of detecting breast cancer in a patient's bone marrow or peripheral blood stem cell products. If successful, the study could lead to the development of a test kit allowing for prognosis and possible diagnosis of breast cancer and other carcinomas.

Friends on the women's tour remembered one of their own Monday when they learned that Kathy Ahern, who won the LPGA Championship in 1972 and stayed around the tour as a teacher and caddie, had died after a five-year fight with breast cancer. "Nothing pleased Kathy more than when one of the players would come up to her and ask if she'd mind taking a look at their swing or their putting stroke," said Sherri Turner, a close friend of Ahern, who died Saturday in Phoenix. She was 47.

Friends on the women's tour remembered one of their own Monday when they learned that Kathy Ahern, who won the LPGA Championship in 1972 and stayed around the tour as a teacher and caddie, had died after a five-year fight with breast cancer. "Nothing pleased Kathy more than when one of the players would come up to her and ask if she'd mind taking a look at their swing or their putting stroke," said Sherri Turner, a close friend of Ahern, who died Saturday in Phoenix. She was 47.

Women who had childhood Hodgkin's disease and were treated with radiation have a much higher risk of developing breast cancer and some other types of solid tumors, according to a new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The research, which shows a breast cancer rate 75 times higher than that of the general population, suggested that women treated for Hodgkin's should be screened regularly for breast cancer, according to a team led by Dr.

Thousands of women every year undergo mastectomies, perhaps unnecessarily, to remove an extremely tiny type of breast cancer that may not spread or endanger their lives, researchers reported in the Journal of the American Medical Assn. The tumors, called ductal carcinoma in situ, are contained in the milk ducts in the breast. Most are too small to be felt and show up only on X-rays.