The annual San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium (SABCS), held earlier this month, is the premier scientific symposium in the world for breast oncologists, breast cancer researchers, and associated healthcare professionals. Its mission is to “encompass the full spectrum of breast cancer research and facilitate the rapid transition of new knowledge into improved care for breast cancer patients.”

To that end, over 800 papers were presented during this year’s 4-day conference.

My mission, as your “ear to the ground” here at mybreastcancernetwork.com, was to cull through those papers for news that’s actually useful to the layperson: namely, us. And it was a daunting task.

For sure, I didn’t skim the abstract of each paper. I mean, most of them just aren’t actionable, as far as the simple reader is concerned. “Identifying stromal-epithelial interactions in the mammary gland through genome-wide siRNA screening,” for instance. It’s not something I’ve been wondering about lately.

So rather than wade through hundreds of titles similar to the one above, I relied on daily Google News updates to keep me informed of the day’s ”big” stories. Many involved new drugs in clinical trials (often obvious PR pieces launched by the drug companies themselves). And a good number covered ongoing research that’s interesting (e.g., a breast cancer vaccine), but years away from fruition.

At the end of the day (er, week), here are some topics from the 2009 SABCS that I think you’ll find both interesting and actionable.

HRT
First it was like drinking from the Fountain of Youth. Then it was identified as a major risk factor for breast cancer. And now, HRT (hormone replacement therapy) is somewhere in between: to be used judiciously, for a short period of time.

For years, women were prescribed estrogen/progesterone replacements to alleviate the hot flashes, weight gain, horrible mood swings, and other difficult side effects that can accompany menopause. For many of us, taking Prempro or Premarin was a lifesaver.

Then the massive Women's Health Initiative study determined that these HRT drugs increase the risk of breast cancer, and millions of us reluctantly gave up our hormones, and tried to deal with menopause as best we could. It’s been a tough battle; in fact, many have decided they’d rather risk cancer than continue to face menopause without help.

A study presented at this year’s Symposium affirms that women who take 10 years of HRT double their risk for breast cancer; being on HRT for about 5 1/2 years increases your risk by about 25%. But there’s good news, too. That risk disappears completely within 2 years after stopping HRT. And, counter-intuitively, women who develop breast cancer after taking HRT have a higher survival rate than those who didn’t take HRT before their cancer diagnosis. It seems women who take HRT develop more “treatable” forms of breast cancer than those who don’t.