Scientists have found a way to identify patients with breast cancer are likely to respond to a type of chemotherapy. The new test also predict that is unlikely to see the benefit of treatment and help save them from unnecessary side effects.

The results – presented by researchers at the European Cancer Conference in Spain – that doctors should be able to tailor treatment to patients who will benefit and avoid the administration of toxic drugs for those not rescued.

In conducting a review of four large studies of breast cancer, researchers have discovered an abnormality on chromosome 17, called CEP17 is an indicator of “very important” that the tumor response to chemotherapy with anthracyclines call.

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In patients with early breast cancer, giving radiotherapy to the lymph nodes behind the breastbone and above the clavicle is well tolerated after a mastectomy or a lumpectomy, a radiation oncologist to delegates at the Seventh European Cancer Conference Breast (EBCC7) Saturday, March 27. Women at high risk of developing breast cancer likely benefit from additional nodal radiation therapy, Dr. Philip Poortmans, Dr. Bernard Verbeet Instituut Tilburg, the Netherlands, and member of the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC ) Radiation Oncology Group, said. The first results of the 4004-patient multicenter study carried out by radiation therapy and breast cancer groups EORTC (46 institutions in 13 countries) shows no evidence of increased toxicity in the heart of three years of follow-up among patients receiving additional lymph node radiotherapy.

Patients were followed for many years to see if the specific radiation of lymph nodes can cause long term damage of the heart or lungs, the side effects associated with radiation therapy for breast cancer.

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Women diagnosed with breast cancer within 12 months after pregnancy are 48 percent more likely to die than other young women with breast cancer, according to a survey by the University of Western Australia.

However, in a study of 3,000 breast cancer patients younger than 45 years, found that if the cancer is diagnosed during pregnancy, your risk of death was only a three percent higher than non-pregnant women with cancer.

Research Assistant Professor Angela Ives at UWA Cancer and Palliative Care Research and Evaluation has shown that very little is known about gestational breast cancer (cancer diagnosed during pregnancy or even a year later.)

“We decided to learn more to enable women to make informed decisions about your cancer treatment and pregnancy,” he said. With his colleagues, Associate Professor / Professor Yves analyzed statistics from Western Australia’s data link system – one of the few such systems in the world.

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