A few short news bits concerning breast cancer:

Breast cancer and breast feeding

“Breastfeeding can offset the increased risk of invasive breast cancer for women who had their first full-term pregnancy after the age of 25, a study led by researchers at the University of Southern California (USC) suggests.” Read more.

Breast cancer vaccines

Someday vaccines may be developed that can help the body’s immune system to “stimulate an antibody and cellular response against cancer cells”. Some researchers trying to find a vaccine against breast cancer have a new strategy to boost T cells (a type of white blood cell) to fight against cancer cells. They used mice bred to carry the oncogene HER-2/neu and gave them a synthetic peptide vaccine. The vaccine resulted in all “samples either slowing or stopping the progression of breast cancer”. Read more.

Preoperative chemotherapy

A Cochrane Systematic Review indicates that “using chemotherapy to reduce the size of tumours before surgery does not compromise survival rates and enables women to retain better self-image and overall health because of the reduced impact of the surgery.” Read more.

More personalized treatment

A test may someday be available to help identify people who might react badly to radiation. “The research could mean people who might react badly to radiotherapy could be warned in advance or alternative treatments be sought.” Read more.

Abortion / miscarriage

And lastly - no surprises here: “Neither induced abortion nor spontaneous abortion (miscarriage) appears to be associated with breast cancer risk in premenopausal women”. Read more.