Breast Cancer In the News: Exercise, One-Step Radiation, Clean Margins and More

Delivering radiation this way prevents the possible skin, heart, and lung issues involved in standard radiation treatment. To say nothing of eliminating the tedious daily drive, and lost work time. Confirmation that this treatment is as effective as normal radiation won’t be available for 18 months, but researchers say it looks promising.

• Clean margins? When you’re having a lumpectomy, that’s what you hope for: no cancer cells in the tissue left after the tumor is removed. But it’s at least a few days post-surgery till you get that information; till you know if you have to go back under the knife.

A cutting-edge new microscope that offers instant analysis of tissue samples taken during a lumpectomy may be able to tell surgeons right then and there if they have clean margins. And that same microscope is able to analyze needle biopsy samples immediately, so the radiologist can potentially stop after a single sample, rather than complete the current standard of “drilling” for six to eight samples. Bottom line: More development needed before use of the microscope becomes widespread. But it looks promising.

• A small step on the path to a cure: You probably know that estrogen promotes breast cancer. But how? Understanding the exact relationship betwsen estrogen and breast cancer would mean progress toward cure or prevention for the up to 70% of us who have estrogen-receptive breast cancer.

Australian scientists have discovered an oncogene (a gene that promotes cancer growth), MYB, that’s actually turned on by estrogen. It’s usually mutated genes that are responsible for cancer; but MYB is a healthy gene. And when estrogen tells it to start working, it can turn normal breast cells into cancerous ones. The goal: block the action of MYB. Prognosis: “Many years of hard work,” according to scientists. But MYB’s discovery may be an important start.

• Embryo selection for the BRCA1 gene: United Press International reports that two British couples want to use an embryo selection technique to screen for the BRCA1 gene, which runs in their families. (BRCA1 is a mutated gene that’s known to be highly predictive for breast cancer.) After in vitro fertilization, while the embryo is at the 8-cell stage, one cell would be removed and examined for the presence of BRCA1. Then, only unaffected embryos would be implanted into the mother’s uterus.

Personally, this sends a chill down my spine. But I suppose it’s not much different that using amniocentesis to reveal Down’s Syndrome. It’s a brave new world out there… I’m just grateful that my childbearing years are past, and I don’t need to make the kind of searing personal decisions about pregnancy and childbirth that prospective mothers today are faced with.