Common precancerous breast diseases may not require surgery, ET HealthWorld

Written by Nancy Lapid

BENGALURU: Initial results from a clinical trial show that most women with precancerous breast conditions: Ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) does not benefit from surgery, as researchers have long suspected.

Women with low-risk DCIS who had frequent mammography screenings were less likely to progress to DCIS. breast cancer Women who have surgery to remove abnormal cells have a better chance of survival over the next two years, according to data presented Thursday at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium in Texas.

In DCIS (often called stage 0 breast cancer), abnormal cells are present in the breast ducts but do not necessarily evolve into invasive cancer.

In the United States alone, more than 50,000 women are affected by DCIS each year. Almost everyone is treated with surgery, including those who undergo mastectomies.

The 957 women with DCIS in the trial were randomly assigned to undergo surgery or active monitoring. Most participants in both groups also received hormone blockade therapy.

According to a research report published in JAMA, the incidence of invasive cancer after two years was 5.9% in the surgery group compared to 4.2% in the active monitoring group, a difference that was not statistically significant. Ta.

“While these initial results are provocative and may be of interest to patients, more long-term follow-up is needed,” study leader Dr. E. Shelley Huang of Duke Cancer Institute in Durham, North Carolina, said in a statement. It is clear that there is a need for this.”

“If these results hold up over time, most patients with this type of low-risk disease will have the option of avoiding invasive treatments. It will completely change the way we think about disease.”

Ibrance extends control of breast cancer types by 15 months

Pfizer's Ibrance helped suppress metastatic breast cancer for significantly longer than normal in patients with certain types of tumors, according to trial results presented Thursday at a San Antonio conference.

All of the nearly 500 patients had progressive disease caused by so-called hormone receptor, or HR-positive, human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2-positive) tumors.

When Ibrance was given in addition to usual treatment, the median time to disease progression was 44.3 months. For patients who received only standard treatment, it took 29.1 months for their cancer to start getting worse.

“These results support the potential of this maintenance therapy to slow disease progression and improve clinical outcomes in this patient population,” said Oncologist at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, who led the study. said Dr. Otto Metzger.

Approximately 10% of all breast cancers are HR and HER2 positive. These are sometimes called double-positive or triple-positive breast cancers. Tumor cells have surface proteins or receptors that bind estrogen, progesterone, or both, and surface receptors that bind HER2, a protein that controls cell growth.

When approved in 2015, Ibrance was the first drug to act on the CDK4 and CDK6 enzymes, which play important roles in cell division.

More breast cancers are being diagnosed at advanced stages in the United States

The number of women with late-stage invasive breast cancer at diagnosis increased significantly among U.S. women of all ages and ethnicities from 2004 to 2021, researchers reported Tuesday in the journal Radiology.

During this period, the number of new breast cancer cases diagnosed, where breast cancer has already spread within the body, increased by an average of 1.16% per year, the report said.

The largest annual increase in the incidence of metastatic breast cancer at diagnosis was 2.9% among women aged 20 to 39 years.

The annual growth rate for women aged 40 to 74 was 2.1% from 2004 to 2012 and 2.7% from 2018 to 2021.

Study co-author Debra Monticciolo, Ph.D., from the Imaging Research Foundation, said, “While it has been previously reported that first-time metastatic breast cancer is significantly increased in women under 40, However, no clear trends among older women have been reported.” The Temple, Texas, educational institution said in a statement.

For women aged 75 years and older, the incidence increased by 1.4% during the study period.

The findings come from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results Database, which collects data on more than 71 million women each year.

Across ethnic groups, Native American women had the highest annual increase in metastatic breast cancer rate at diagnosis, at 3.9%. The incidence among Asian women increased by 2.9% per year. The annual rates of change for black women and Hispanic women were 0.86% and 1.6%, respectively.

Among white women, it increased by 1.7% per year from 2004 to 2012, but no trend was seen thereafter.

The researchers also reported that the incidence of metastatic breast cancer was 55% higher in black women compared with white women.

“Less than 50% of American women participate in breast cancer screening each year,” said Monticciolo, past president of the American College of Radiology.

“This means we don't have a chance to wipe out early-stage breast cancer in a huge number of women who would arrive at a later stage for diagnosis.” (Reporting by Nancy Lapid, Bill Burke Edited by lot)

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