Recent Research

While breast cancer cannot yet be prevented‚ a large U.S. study showed that a drug named tamoxifen‚ taken by women at high-risk of breast cancer, their risk of developing breast cancer in half.

While breast cancer cannot yet be prevented‚ a large U.S. study showed that a drug named tamoxifen‚ taken by women at high-risk of breast cancer, their risk of developing breast cancer in half. Tamoxifen works, in part‚ by interfering with the activity of estrogen‚ a female hormone that promotes the growth of breast cancer cells. Tamoxifen has been used for more than 20 years to treat patients with breast cancer and is currently being used to reduce the likelihood of breast cancer developing in women at high risk.

A second drug‚ raloxifene‚ was approved for the prevention of osteoporosis in post-menopausal women. Research suggests that women taking this drug developed breast cancer less often than would have been expected. There is currently a study underway in the U.S. comparing tamoxifen to raloxifene for lowering the risk of breast cancer. If you are high risk and post-menopausal‚ you may be eligible for this study.

Breast cancer is the leading cancer cited among American women and is second only to lung cancer in cancer deaths. Breast cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths among women ages 40-55.

How Breast Cancer Begins

Breast cancer begins when changes occur within a breast cell that allows it to bypass controls on growth or division. This cell grows into many cells that then produce many more. As these abnormal breast cells become more numerous, they take on more changes that allow them to leave their normal location (lining the inside of ducts and lobules), and begin to invade into surrounding fatty and fibrous support tissues of the breast. They are now cancer cells.

Once the breast cancer cells invade the support tissue of the breast, they have access to blood vessels and lymphatic vessels. It is through these vessels that they have the chance to spread to other areas of the body. The spread is called metastasis. The goal of screening for breast cancer is to find the cancers before they have spread, at a time when they can be treated with the greatest success rate.

The goal of screening for breast cancer is to find the cancers before they have spread, at a time when they can be treated with the greatest success rate.