Who Does Breast Cancer Affect
Breast cancer mainly affects older women.
Most breast cancers occur in women over the age of 50. And the older you are, the higher your risk.
Men can also get breast cancer, but this is rare. Most men who get breast cancer are over 60.
Breast cancer is caused by a combination of our genes, environment and lifestyles. Find out more about breast cancer causes.
Role Of The Funding Source
This translational study was funded by Biotheranostics Inc. Novartis funded centralized biospecimen collection as part of the parent IDEAL trial. Tumor tissue processing, pathology review, and data collection were conducted by Leiden University Medical Center . BCI assays were performed by Biotheranostics in a blinded manner, without knowledge of treatment assignment or clinical outcome. Study unblinding was led and conducted by LUMC. BCI data were merged with patient data at LUMC and access to merged data was limited to the study biostatisticians. The report was drafted in its entirety by the authors without benefit of paid assistance. Content of the final report was not subject to approval from the corporate sponsor. The corresponding author had final responsibility for the data submission for publication.
Is American Breast Cancer Coalition A Scam ‘charity’ Has Shady Ties And History
ABCC is one of several political groups masquerading as charities, raising money for a number of issues but channeling it into raising more money
The American Breast Cancer Coalition, as per a new report, might be a scheme to extract millions of dollars in donations, mostly from small contributors. In May 2019, Bill Davis created the nonprofit, and the group quickly started raising money. The ABCC website states that it is a national political organization organized under Section 527 of the IRS Tax Code.
As per a new report in The Daily Beast, robocalls from ABCC claim the goal of the groups fundraising is to support legislators who will fight for the fast track approval of life-saving breast cancer health bills and breast cancer treatment drugs to the FDA. But financial records on file with the Internal Revenue Service reportedly tell a different story.
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A joint investigation between The Daily Beast and OpenSecrets found payments to firms with ties to a multimillion-dollar scam PAC network. Since its inception in 2019, ABCC reportedly has brought in nearly $3.57 million, according to IRS filings. However, the nonprofit has so far paid nearly every dollar it has raised to fundraising companies, some of which reportedly have ties to telemarketer Mark Gelvan.
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The Breast Cancer Index Test
Seven genes are analysed to see whether or not the cancer comes back within ten years after you get diagnosed. This test is called the Breast Cancer Index test.
In short, this genomic test does an analysis of 7 genes which influence the likelihood of cancer coming back within a decade after getting diagnosed as well as the likelihood of how hormone therapy will benefit a woman for another five years.
Bci Status Predicts Benefit From Extended Endocrine Therapy
Analysis of the overall cohort showed that significant differences in outcome from randomized treatment of 2.5 years versus 5 years of letrozole were dependent on classification by BCI . Significant benefit from 5 years of extended letrozole was demonstrated in the 47% of patients classified as BCI -high . The risk of recurrence was 5.9% and 15.7% for patients treated with 5 and 2.5 years of letrozole, respectively, demonstrating an absolute benefit of 9.8% for reduction of the risk of recurrence . In contrast, no statistically significant benefit from 5 years versus 2.5 years of letrozole was observed in the 53% of patients classified as BCI -low . The risk of recurrence was 14.9% and 15.4% for patients treated with 5 and 2.5 years of letrozole, respectively . BCI effects on extended endocrine benefit and outcome were consistent across recurrence endpoints of RFI and DFI as well as mortality based on DFS .
Predictive performance by BCI groups based on RFI in the overall cohort and the primary AI subset . KaplanMeier analysis of risk of recurrence comparing 10 years versus 7.5 years of endocrine therapy in the overall cohort and in the primary AI subset .
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Patient And Tumor Characteristics
Patient and tumor characteristics are summarized in . Of the 402 cases that met the inclusion/exclusion criteria and were included in the study cohort, 39% were < 50 years old and 61% were 50 years old. The majority of cases were treated with adjuvant doxorubicin and cyclophosphamide or AC-T based chemotherapy. For adjuvant endocrine therapy, 191 patients received tamoxifen only, 69 received an aromatase inhibitor only, and 142 received a sequence of tamoxifen and an AI. A total of 276 patients were treated with up to 5 years of endocrine therapy, whereas 126 patients received more than 5 years of endocrine therapy. There was no relationship between tumor size and treatment duration, although a smaller proportion of patients that received more than 5 years of endocrine therapy were grade 3 compared with patients that received 5 years . A majority of patients had ductal histology , and most patients had one or two positive nodes. The cohort included 17% grade 1, 56% grade 2, and 26% grade 3, 62% 2 cm, and 38% > 2 cm, and the proportion of distant recurrences that occurred early versus late were similar. There were 87 distant recurrences, 44% of which occurred more than 5 years after diagnosis . Patient characteristics in patients with early versus late recurrences are shown in Supplementary Table S1. Median follow-up was 12 years, with 78 patients having 15 years of follow-up.
Know Your Risk Of Cancer Recurrence And Likelihood Of Benefit From Anti
Accurately assessing the risk of your cancer returning provides an important piece of information to help guide you and your doctorâs treatment decisions. Of equal importance is knowing if you are likely to benefit from a particular drug therapy intended to help prevent recurrence. Since breast cancer is not a five year disease, recurrence is measured across two time intervals early and late .
At diagnosis, women with breast cancer are typically classified as having a âhigh,â âintermediateâ or âlowâ potential for recurrence, based on a number of clinical and pathological factors such as the size and aggressiveness of the tumor. Tests intended to inform likelihood of benefit from chemotherapy are routinely used and have helped many physicians and patients select a treatment path .
Recently, multiple clinical trials have demonstrated that a small percentage of patients are likely to benefit if oral anti-estrogen medication is taken continuously for an additional five years . Breast Cancer Index is a new test to help determine if you are likely to benefit from an additional five years of anti-estrogen medication. BCI can also provide additional clarity around the risk of cancer returning between 5-10 years after diagnosis.
BCI requires no additional procedure for you. The test is run on the very same tumor specimen that was removed at diagnosis. BCI provides results that may help you and your doctor customize your treatment path.
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Whos Eligible For The Breast Cancer Index Test
You may be eligible for the Breast Cancer Index test if:
- you were diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer
- the cancer was hormone-receptor-positive
- there was no cancer in your lymph nodes or the cancer is lymph-node positive and is in one, two, or three lymph nodes
- youve been taking hormonal therapy for 4 to 5 years and want to know if taking hormonal therapy for more time will be beneficial
Research has shown that extending hormonal therapy for 5 more years for a total of 10 years of hormonal therapy can offer benefits for some women diagnosed with early-stage, hormone-receptor-positive disease.
The Breast Cancer Index test is performed on preserved tissue that was removed during the original biopsy or surgery.
Because many women have troubling side effects, including hot flashes and joint pain, from hormonal therapy, they want to know if extending the time they take hormonal therapy is worth tolerating the side effects.
Study Design And Patients
The aTTom parent trial is a prospective, phase III trial that included 6956 breast cancer patients who remained disease free after having completed at least 4years of adjuvant tamoxifen therapy and were randomized to either continue or stop tamoxifen treatment of an additional 5years .
The translational aTTom study, Trans-aTTom, is a multi-institutional, prospectiveretrospective study with the objective of validating the predictive performance of BCI in early-stage breast cancer patients in the extended endocrine setting . All patients previously randomized in the aTTom study with available formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded primary resection tumor blocks were eligible. Exclusion criteria included lack of invasive tumor as assessed by histopathology review, insufficient tissue on tissue microarray analysis, and insufficient RNA signal .
Modified REMARK diagram. The diagram shows tumor block collection, specimen processing and molecular testing, leading to a final analyzable cohort of 583 HR+ N+ patients. BCI, Breast Cancer Index IHC, immunohistochemistry TMA, tissue microarray HR+, hormone receptor-positive.
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What Is Cell Proliferation
Cell proliferation is how quickly a cancer cell copies its DNA and divides into 2 cells. If the cancer cells are dividing more rapidly, it means the cancer is faster growing or more aggressive.
The rate of cancer cell proliferation can be estimated by doing a Ki-67 test. In some cases, Ki-67 testing to measure cell proliferation may be used to help plan treatment or estimate treatment outcomes. But test results can vary depending on things like the lab doing the testing, the testing method, and what part of the tumor is tested.
Another way to determine cell division is the S-phase fraction, which is the percentage of cells in a sample that are copying their DNA as it gets ready to divide into 2 new cells.
If the S-phase fraction or Ki-67 labeling index is high, it means that the cancer cells are dividing more rapidly.
Grading Of Breast Carcinoma: Dcis And Lcis
After the initial diagnosis, more detailed staging processes are undertaken to learn about the extent of the breast cancer, and to arrive at a prognosis and treatment strategy.
One part of the staging process is to give the breast tumor a grade, with lower grades usually indicative of a good prognosis, while higher grade breast cancers tend to have a poorer prognosis.
Doctors consider DCIS and LCIS to be a stage 0 or non-invasive breast cancer, as the tumor is still confined within the breast ducts or lobules. But even DCIS and LCIS tumors may still receive a grade.
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Breast Cancer Index Test Eligibility
For the Breast Cancer Index test, you may be eligible if you have been undergoing hormone therapy for five years and want to find out if it will be beneficial to keep taking hormone therapy. You might also be eligible if there was no cancer in your lymph nodes. You can also take the Breast Cancer Index test if you got a diagnosis of early stage breast cancer between stages one to three. There has been research that reveals that continuing hormone therapy for another five years for a total of a decades worth of hormone therapy will be beneficial for some women that had been diagnosed with HER2-negative disease, hormone receptor positive in the early stages. During the original surgery or biopsy, the index test is performed on the tissues removed. Since many patients have side effects such as joint pain and hot flashes that can be troubling, they want to know whether or not prolonging the time for additional hormone therapy is worth the side effects that need to be tolerated.
“New Hope empowered me and my husband through education and support to change our lives, making cancer an experience that made us stronger and better people … I thank God we made the decision to go to New Hope. My husband Barry & I highly recommend New Hope to patients and champions alike who are facing this modern day illness …” — Laura Hilton
Breast Cancer Staging: Will A Breast Cancer Progress
Breast cancer stage is a phrase that may seem to imply that a breast tumor will move from one stage to the next higher stage, over time. That is somewhat true if a breast cancer is left untreated. But when breast cancer patients undergo effective treatment they are often cured.
The physicians and surgeons who offer treatment for breast cancer must make an evaluation, using their knowledge and experience, on how aggressive the treatment for breast cancer needs to be.
In addition, specialists will assess whether this treatment is urgent or not, and how best to monitor the progress and response over time. They need to know the stage, in order to make these recommendations.
This is the index about staging from my older content. It might be valuable, but this new page on staging is probably more-so.
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Patient Characteristics And Breast Cancer Index Distribution
Of the 386 patients who were identified in the UPMC database for analysis and who met the eligibility criteria , 265 had paraffin tissue blocks available for assessing BCI. Patient characteristics are shown in Table . Overall, the median time of follow-up for all patients was 10.3 years, the rate of distant recurrence was 15%, and mortality rates were 11% and 15% for breast cancer-specific and all-cause mortality, respectively. As this was a clinical case series, treatment was not uniform. Of the 265 patients, 85 received adjuvant chemotherapy in addition to adjuvant tamoxifen, whereas 180 were treated with tamoxifen alone. Non-recurrence and recurrence rates between these two treatment groups were not significantly different , and the chemotherapy-treated group consisted of patients who were younger and who had higher tumor grade and larger tumors in comparison with the group treated with tamoxifen alone.
Table 1 Patient characteristics
The Breast Cancer Index & Predicting Risk Of Recurrence
The Breast Cancer Index is a test that analyzes a breast cancer patients genes. In women with estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer, BCI predicts risk of recurrence beyond five years and predicts how likely a patient is to respond to hormone therapy. This is a powerful tool for clinicians and provides important information for patients because it helps to individualize treatment.
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Various Kinds Of Breast Cancer
Most invasive breast cancers are actually of a generic variety, often simply called ductal carcinoma NOS or not otherwise specified. There are about 5 or 6 fairly common types of specific breast cancers which have a particular cellular appearance and behaviour. Beyond this there are numerous rare forms of breast cancer, and quite a number that are more difficult to classify because they have features common to different breast cancer types, or contain a certain percentage of benign disease.
And, I have a newer page about DCIS here.
Index For Older Breast Cancer Posts
My older breast cancer website pages are still here. Theres actually hundreds of pages of information and some of it is really good and pretty timeless. So, I didnt want to delete them because there is a LOT of work there. So for your viewing pleasure here is my breast cancer index of posts. Just keep in mind that they are from the 2003 to 2010 timeframe, and the information is therefore a little out of date.
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Staging Of Breast Cancer: The Index
Firstly, medics make an initial diagnosis of breast cancer in the screening process. Secondly, a number of subsequent tests and evaluations follow to determine the staging of breast cancer.
What stage is the breast cancer? Well, basically the question means is the cancer in the early stages or more advanced? Staging results are useful for the breast cancer treatment team to determine the treatment and the follow-up procedures for managing the breast cancer.
What Affects Prognosis
There are a number of factors that affect breast cancer prognosis. These include:
- the type of breast cancer
- the grade of the breast cancer
- the size of the breast cancer
For more information see our booklet Understanding your pathology results or visit our pathology report page.
Other factors that may affect your prognosis include your age, menopausal status , lifestyle factors and your general health.
All of these factors will be considered when estimating your prognosis and deciding what treatment youre offered.
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What Are Genomic Tests
Genomic tests analyze a sample of a cancer tumor to see how active certain genes are. The activity level of these genes affects the behavior of the cancer, including how likely it is to grow and spread. Genomic tests are used to help make decisions about whether more treatments after surgery would be beneficial.
While their names sound similar, genomic testing and genetic testing are very different.
Genetic testing is done on a sample of your blood, saliva, or other tissue and can tell if you have a change in a gene that is linked to a higher risk of breast cancer. See the Genetic Testing pages for more information.
Basic Information About Breast Cancer
Cancer is a disease in which cells in the body grow out of control. Except for skin cancer, breast cancer is the most common cancer in women in the United States. Deaths from breast cancer have declined over time, but breast cancer remains the second leading cause of cancer death among women overall and the leading cause of cancer death among Hispanic women.
Each year in the United States, about 255,000 cases of breast cancer are diagnosed in women and about 2,300 in men. About 42,000 women and 500 men in the U.S. die each year from breast cancer. Black women have a higher rate of death from breast cancer than White women.
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