QSUM Quips - August 2015

Back to School...

"The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows."
- Sydney J. Harris

As we all know education isn't just about grades and memorization but about experiences, making friends and learning. We hope you have a great school year!

Cindy & Hudson

The Latest News

HOT TOPIC: Breast Density

Patient Risk Checklist

Check out the NEW Breast Density Educational Site. www.DenseBreast-info.org

UVA Researchers Demonstrate High Precision of Automated Volumetric Breast Density. Researchers at the University of Virginia (UVA) Health System have demonstrated that automated volumetric breast density measurement tools are more precise than area-based methods.

How Breast Density Can Affect Cancer Screenings. When it comes to breast cancer screening, the density of your breasts affects how well a mammogram can detect cancerous tissues.

Dense Breast Screening: Dense if We Do, Dense if We Don't? Modifying screening protocols for women with dense breast tissue is the right approach - for now.

iCAD Announces Launch Of IReveal Breast Density Analysis Solution As Latest Addition To PowerLook Advanced Mammography Platform. The iReveal software is designed to deliver automated, rapid and reproducible assessments of breast density to help identify patients that may experience reduced sensitivity to digital mammography due to dense breast tissue.

VolparaDensity Used to Guide Patient Selection in First Breast MRI Screening Trial for Women with Extremely Dense Breasts. The trial seeks to determine the effectiveness of screening with mammography and MRI compared to mammography alone in women who have extremely dense breasts.

MAMMOGRAPHY:

False-Positive Mammography Differences a Mystery. Statistical methods, screening intervals, and mammogram types do not explain the substantial differences in cumulative false-positive risk between the US and Europe, according to a study published in Cancer Epidemiology.

Radiation Doses in Mammography Lower than Expected: Study. University of California Davis, and colleagues found that by examining radiation doses across a simulated average of breast CT scans, radiation doses for mammography have been overestimated by ~30%.

Mammography: Screening vs. Survival. Stratifying the analysis by tumor size, investigators found that more screening was strongly associated with an increased incidence of small breast cancers of 2 cm or less but not with a decrease in the incidence of larger breast cancers greater than 2 cm in size.

More Mammograms May Not Always Mean Fewer Cancer Deaths. Here's more evidence that mammograms don't always deliver the results that women want. They find more small cancers, but don't lower a woman's risk of dying of breast cancer, a study finds.

ULTRASOUND:

Automated Breast Ultrasound System Market: Global Industry Analysis and Opportunity Assessment 2015-2025. The research report presents a comprehensive assessment of the market and contains thoughtful insights, facts, historical data, and statistically supported and industry-validated market data.

MRI:

Study investigates supplemental MRI screening for dense breasts. The trial is investigating the use of mammography and breast MRI for screening women with dense breasts. The researchers must show that MRI is associated with a reduction in interval cancers, in order to prove that it is an effective screening strategy.

Dual breast exam using MRI and NIRST more accurate than MRI alone. Xijing Hospital in Xian, China, demonstrated that a dual breast exam using MRI and Near Infrared Spectral Tomography (NIRST) is feasible and more accurate than MRI alone.

PET/PEM/RAD THERAPY/BSGI/MBI:

Breast-Specific Gamma Imaging Accurately Identifies Invasive Lobular Carcinomas. BSGI identified the known lesions in 91% of the women with ILCs and identified new ipsilateral or contralateral cancers in 16%. In contrast, only 6% of women with invasive ductal carcinomas (IDCs) were found to have additional lesions.

BIOPSY:

Breast biopsy market set to grow by 2020

NEW TECHNOLOGY:

Atomic force microscope advance leads to new breast cancer research. Researchers who developed a high-speed form of atomic force microscopy have shown how to image the physical properties of live breast cancer cells, for the first time revealing details about how deactivation of a key protein may lead to metastasis.

Celsion's Phase II Breast Cancer Study Interim Data Positive. The company is looking to start treating the first patient in the EURO-DIGNITY study soon. EURO-DIGNITY will evaluate the use of ThermoDox plus hyperthermia and radiation in earlier stage breast cancer patients. If positive, data from the study will enable the company to submit a regulatory application in

University of Twente scientists take significant step in breast cancer research. The technique based on the physical principle of photoacoustics, has been christened PAMmography. It uses short bursts of light that cause ultrasonic waves to be generated in places with high density of blood vessels, such as in the vicinity of malignant tumours.

Targeting copper to treat breast cancer. A drug, tetrathiomolybdate (TM), which mops up copper in the body and that had already failed in a series of previous cancer clinical trials, is getting a second chance. A phase II trial of the drug in women who had been successfully treated for breast cancer but have a high risk of recurrence suggests that it can prevent the growth of new tumors.

MISCELLANEOUS ARTICLES:

Breakthrough: Two cheap, generic drugs blast breast cancer. Researchers have found that two inexpensive classes of drugs that are available in generic form can significantly reduce the recurrent of breast cancer in post-menopausal woman, and even lower total deaths.

Breast cancer treatment tied to weight gain. Women who have had breast cancer treatment that includes chemo gain more weight than cancer-free women of the same age up to five years later.

Exercise 300 minutes a week 'to cut postmenopausal breast cancer risk'. Doubling the amount of weekly moderate to vigorous aerobic exercise, to 300 minutes instead of 150 minutes a week, had a better effect on body fat in a trial of 400 inactive postmenopausal women.

Why Women Shouldn't Cower To Concerns About Overdiagnosis Of Breast Cancer. The findings, as presented, are inarguable.
But I have concerns about the paper, and conclusions. First, the mammograms were performed in 2000 or earlier. Technology has improved in the 15 years since. It's plainly unreasonable to consider mammography today as it was then.

Breast cancer warning to older women. Many older women are unaware of some of the early warning signs of breast cancer, according to a survey.
Fewer than half of the women over 70 who were questioned could name a symptom, apart from a lump. About one in three women diagnosed with breast cancer each year are aged 70 or over.

Drug could help slow half of breast cancers, study suggests. Their study is in its early stages, but hints that the hormone progesterone could be used to slow the growth of some tumours. The UK and Australian researchers say the findings are "very significant" and they are planning clinical trials.

Defying Doctors, More Women With Breast Cancer Choose Double Mastectomies. Doctors call it a profound shift in the prevailing medical culture and some have begun to question whether the field should reconsider performing what amounts to an amputation with little evidence to support its efficacy.

Similarities between embryos, breast tumors identified. It may seem incredulous, but breast tumors may have something in common with embryos, at least in mice, say researchers. Tumors that resemble six-day-old mouse embryos are more prone to metastasize than those that look like tissues from adult mice, researchers discovered. Specifically, they noticed that the same genes that are turned on in developing mice are also present in metastatic tumors.

Tumor-Sniffing Dogs Are the Future of Cancer Detection. Dr. Claire Guest, who founded Medical Detection Dogs after her own dog sniffed out a tumor in her breast.

FREE CE CREDIT:

Current State of MRI in Breast Imaging

BEST BLOGS:

House GOP pulls breast cancer research bill

How blogging has helped Eimear (31) cope with breast cancer:

RECIPE:

Avocado Zucchini Soup