MAYWOOD, Ill. -- A new study is providing insight into how estrogen fuels many breast cancers, and researchers say the findings could lead to new cancer-fighting drugs.

Researchers found that estrogen inhibits a protein called MLK3 that causes normal cell death. Blocking MLK3 leads to uncontrolled growth of cancer cells and resistance to chemotherapyterm.

Researchers from Loyola University Health System and three other centers reported the findings in the journal Cancer Research.

(PHILADELPHIA) Researchers from the Kimmel Cancer Center at Jefferson have found a mechanism by which a hormone responsible for milk production blocks an oncogene that makes breast cancer more aggressive.

Publishing in the journal Cancer Research, the researchers discovered that prolactin, a pituitary hormone that normally stimulates breast development and milk production, in fact reduces levels of an oncogene called BCL6. The BCL6 protein has previously been shown to play a role in poorly differentiated breast cancer, which carries a poorer prognosis.

A new study in the journal Integrative Cancer Therapies (Vol. 8, No. 3: September 2009) points to a benefit for women with breast cancer that pursue the Transcendental meditation technique.

Washington, DC – Researchers at Georgetown University Medical Center (GUMC) are voicing alarm that drugs to treat a wide variety of allergies, asthma and autoimmune diseases now in human clinical trials may errantly spur development of breast tumors.

Scientists have identified some of the elusive downstream molecules that play a critical role in the development and progression of familial breast cancer. The research, published by Cell Press in the October 10th issue of the journal Molecular Cell, also identifies a compound found in grapes and red wine as an excellent candidate for treatment of some forms of breast cancer.

About 8% of breast cancer cases are caused by mutations in tumor suppressor genes, such as breast cancer associated gene-1 (BRCA1). BRCA1 is the most frequently mutated tumor suppressor gene found in inherited breast cancers and BRCA1 mutation carriers have a 50-80% risk of developing breast cancer by age 70. "Although work with animal models of BRCA1 mutation has provided some insight into the many biological processes linked with BRCA1, very little is known about the downstream mediators of BRCA1 function in tumor suppression," says lead study author Dr. Chu-Xia Deng from the Genetics of Development and Diseases Branch at the National Institutes of Health.

Researchers at Wayne State University have tested a breast cancer vaccine they say completely eliminated HER2-positive tumors in mice - even cancers resistant to current anti-HER2 therapy - without any toxicity.

The study, reported in the September 15 issue of Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, suggests the vaccine could treat women with HER2-positive, treatment-resistant cancer or help prevent cancer recurrence. The researchers also say it might potentially be used in cancer-free women to prevent initial development of these tumors.

Researchers from the U.S. and Canada found that two computer models widely used to determine who should undergo genetic testing for BRCA mutations under predicted mutation frequency in Asian-American women by 50 percent. Mutations in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes significantly increase the risk of breast and ovarian cancers, and women who learn they have these mutations are encouraged to seek more frequent cancer screening or may undertake other measures to reduce their cancer risk, such as preventive mastectomy or removal of the ovaries.

The incidence of breast cancer among Asians is generally lower than among Caucasians. However, breast cancer rates are increasing in China, Korea and other Asian countries and among Asian immigrants to the United States, which has led to increasing demand for BRCA1/2 mutation testing in this population.

“Our findings indicate that Asian-American women with BRCA mutations may not be referred for genetic testing as often as they should be,” said lead author Allison Kurian, MD, MSc, assistant professor of medicine and of health research and policy at Stanford University School of Medicine. “While women of Asian descent have, in the past, been at lower risk for breast and ovarian cancers compared with other races, these findings will be important for physicians to keep in mind when assessing whether their Asian-American patients are candidates for BRCA mutation testing.”

The models, called BRCAPRO and Myriad II, are commonly used to determine which patients inquiring about genetic consultation would benefit most from genetic testing for BRCA mutations. These models were initially created using data on BRCA mutations in Caucasians, and some studies have shown these models accurately predicted gene mutation risk in other minority groups, including African-Americans and Hispanics.

For this study, researchers compared the results of the BRCAPRO and Myriad II computer prediction models with the findings of genetic testing in 200 Asian-Americans and 200 matched non-Jewish Caucasians. (Jewish women were excluded from the analysis because of their higher prevalence ofBRCA mutations.) The models accurately predicted the number of Caucasian BRCA1/2 mutation carriers (25 observed versus 24 predicted by BRCAPRO and 25 by Myriad II). However, the models significantly under predicted Asian mutation carriers (49 observed versus 25 predicted by BRCAPRO and 26 by Myriad II). For BRCAPRO, the difference was especially pronounced for Asian BRCA2mutation carriers (26 observed versus only 4 predicted); the Myriad II prediction model does not have the ability to differentiate between BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation risk.

The famillies of loved ones with cancer are well aware that chemo causes unwelcome affects to a person's cognitive skills. Now in animal studies at West Virginia University (WVU), researchers have discovered that injections of N-acetyl cysteine (NAC), an antioxidant, can stem the memory loss that cancer drugs sometimes cause. The study has just been published in the September issue of the journal Metabolic Brain Disease.

Using adriamycin and cyclophosphamide, two commonly administered chemotherapyterm drugs, rats who were trained to prefer a light room to a dark one forgot their training.

“When animals are treated with chemotherapy drugs, they lose memory,” said Gregory Konat, Ph.D., professor of neurobiology and anatomy at WVU. “When we add NAC during treatment, they don’t lose memory.”

NAC is a modified form of the dietary amino acid cysteine chosen for its antioxidant properties.

The enzyme target, Brk, is shown to be an accelerator of HER2-positive tumors

Tumor cells in a particular subset of breast cancer patients churn out too much of a protein called ErbB2 -- also often called HER2 -- which drives the cells to proliferate unchecked. Patients unlucky enough to be in this group -- about one in four -- have poorer prognoses and clinical outcomes than those who don't.

The drugs Herceptin and Lapatinib, prescribed in combination with other chemotherapeutic agents, have improved this picture significantly, but leave plenty of room for improvement: they suppress ErbB2 but are effective against less than half of ErbB2-producing tumors. Moreover, patients with tumors that do respond usually develop resistance to these drugs.

New research may explain why breast cancer tends to be more aggressive in women with denser breast tissue.

Breast cancer cells grown in dense, rigid surroundings step up their invasive activities, Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center investigators report in the Sept. 9 issue of Current Biology.

The findings suggest a cellular mechanism for the correlation between human breast tissue density and tumor aggressiveness. Women with increased breast density on mammograms have an increased risk for both developing breast cancer and having breast cancers with invasive characteristics.

HOUSTON - Breast cancer patients and their physicians may make more informed, long-term treatment decisions using risk assessment strategies to help determine probability of recurrence, a research team led by scientists at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center reported in the Aug. 12 online issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

The 2,838 women studied were diagnosed with Stage I through III breast cancers and had been treated with adjuvant systemic therapy (AST), such as chemotherapyterm and or tamoxifen between 1985 and 2001, and were in the M. D. Anderson Tumor Registry. The patients in the study were five years from the start of their AST and were cancer-free. The researchers calculated the residual or remaining risk of recurrence from the benchmark of five years from the start of AST and determined the factors that contributed to a higher residual risk of recurrence.

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- The number of women undergoing mastectomy (total breast removal) for early-stage breast cancer has increased in the last three years at Mayo Clinic in Rochester. The increase follows a steady decline during the prior seven years.

Researchers say the reasons for this increase are unclear. But they have determined that women at Mayo Clinic who underwent diagnostic magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) prior to surgery to treat early-stage breast cancer had a higher rate of mastectomy, compared to women who did not have an MRI.

“We found that if a woman undergoes an MRI before surgery, she is about 10 percent to 15 percent more likely to have a mastectomy, compared to women who did not undergo MRI,” says the study’s lead author, Rajini Katipamula, M.D., a senior clinical fellow in hematology/oncology.