Breast Cancer Research

Years of continuous breast cancer research has helped change the natural history of the disease, providing significant progress in both detection and treatment. Current research in this field focuses more than ever on the impact of breast cancer treatment on general health state. At the public Symposion before the annual BCRF Luncheon, top ocologists and scientists working in the breast cancer research field have underlined the recent changes that has been brought to breast cancer treatment.

Breast Cancer Research Studies

Researchers participating in the public Symposion have summarized the conclusions of several studies on breast cancer issues:

·        Breast cancer treatment has been reduced to 2-9 months during the last 20 years. However, post treatment recovery usually takes two years or more.

·        Women are most worried about the risk of death associated with breast cancer and they are willing to undergo the difficulties of chemotherapy in order to reduce it.

·        Among breast cancer patients, high-risk groups include young women who have their fertility jeopardized by treatment and women who do not receive enough family or social support during treatment.

·        There are many women who actually get some positive results from there breast cancer, helping them rearrange their life priorities.

·        Progressive return to usual life activities before the diagnosis is essential during the early survivorship period.

·        Overweight or obesity is a possible indicator for recurrence of breast cancer. The “insulin resistance syndrome” can sometimes indicate that the risk for breast cancer or breast cancer recurrence has incresed. Women need to be aware of the fact that overweight is a risk factor, do physical exercises and change their eating patterns.

Herceptin Treatment

Current breast cancer research also focuses on the new drug treatment Hercepting and its effects on cardiac diseases. There is a slight, but real risk of developing a cardiac disease associated with Hercepting. Patients following this treatment need to be monitored carefully to reduce risks.

However, recent breast cancer research showed that Herceptin is very effective in reducing recurrence. Two clinical trials showed that when associated with chemotherapy, it reduced breast cancer recurrence in patients with HER-2 positive cancer by over 50 percent.

Post Treatment Experience

Breast cancer research studies have also shown that women experience treatment in different ways. The ones that who take an active approach on their condition usually feel better, while others are more prone to depression. Psychologists are working on developing new strategies for responding to the patients’ needs and helping them cope with the disease.

In addition to psychological problems, almost 30 percent of all breast cancer survivors suffer from lymphedema – chronic arm swelling after breast cancer surgery caused by the removal of lymph nodes. Due to the high incidence of this post treatment condition, researchers are very preoccupied with developing ways of preventing and reducing lymphedema. 

The participants to the BCRF’s Public Symposion discussed about the progress that breast cancer research has brought to other aspects of woman’s health as well, such as obesity, hear disease, menopause and post-menopause. However, the progress of current research is very much limited to the United States and other developed countries. As breast cancer is one of the most common cancers worldwide, the results of the research and the improvements in treatment have to be translated to developing countries as well.