Breaking Research News from sources other than Breastcancer.org
Comments
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Oral taxane tesetaxel is being withdrawn from development
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/odonate-therapeutic...
"clinical data package for tesetaxel is unlikely to support FDA approval." ... so it turns out it didn't actually work all that well
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In fact, women appear hardwired to experience COVID-19 and the vaccines differently. Data from the CDC suggests side effects from the vaccines are worse in women; for example, 63 of the total 66 reported cases of anaphylaxis happened in women.
Why Women Experience COVID and the Vaccines Differently Than Men0 -
Antibody drug conjugates article on Springer
Clinical Development of New Antibody–Drug Conjugates in Breast Cancer: To Infinity and Beyond
https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s40259-021-00472-z.pdf
I have skimmed the paper. Lots of hope for ADCs including ER/PR + Her2-
Dee0 -
Research article associating breast adipocyte size and COX-2 expression in DCIS cells with higher potential for DCIS to develop into invasive breast cancer.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41523-021-00232-w
I don't yet understand all of the details but it reinforces that looking at BMI primarily is not always a good answer.
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PKNC - is breast adipocyte the same as "dense breast". I wonder if that is why I have had so much trouble
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I’m not sure, but what I think this article is getting at, is that the size of the breast fat cells, which tend to be larger in obese and post menopausal women (any weight) due to inflammation, are associated with cancer progression.
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BlueGirlRedState: No, breast adiposity is NOT the same as dense breasts. In fact, it is sort of the opposite. On imaging, fat, aka "adiposity," is very translucent, so it is relatively easy to see tumors and high risk tissue in fatty or adipose breasts. Dense tissue looks like solid white on imaging. It is hard to see through, so it is difficult to see tumors hiding in dense tissue. The benign dense tissue and a tumor look very much the same. That is why mammograms are not as effective at finding breast cancer in women with dense breasts. Research and development is looking at techniques to combat these challenges... things like artificial intelligence and thermography. I may be able to scrape up a link to some propaganda from GE on their R&D which discusses this a bit if anyone is interested. As someone with dense breasts - which unquestionably hid my BC for *at least* a year if not longer - I am very glad to know that work is being done to try to overcome this screening challenge.
PS: Anyone else find it amusing and frustrating that many of us spend too much time, effort and distress on trying to rid our bodies of fat elsewhere, but that fat, which comprises the majority of healthy, mature, female breasts is deemed cosmetically desirable? Not everyone, but many....a la "Why can't my muffin tops relocate to my breasts?"
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🤔😂 Lumpie!
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Lumpie - thank you for the laugh. One person posted that her DR told her that changes she was seeing in her fingers were because she was losing fat there, rather than in her "handles". It just is not fair. I was considering DIEP at one time, turning love handles into boobs sounded good. But I was not a good candidate, not the right kind of fat in the right places.
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BlueGirlRedState: Oh dear. I am so glad no one told me I had "the wrong kind of fat" at an inopportune moment. That could have been dangerous!
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since starting letrozole in early January I have gone down some brassiere sizes.
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Cyclophosphamide-Free Adjuvant Chemotherapy for Ovarian Protection in Young Women with Breast Cancer
https://www.practiceupdate.com/C/116102/56?elsca1=emc_enews_topic-alert
TAKE-HOME MESSAGE
- This randomized, phase III trial conducted across eight hospitals in China was designed to evaluate the menstrual resumption rate and disease-free survival in women with ER-positive, HER2-negative, early-stage breast cancer receiving epirubicin and cyclophosphamide followed by weekly paclitaxel (EC-P) or epirubicin and paclitaxel followed by weekly paclitaxel (EP-P). The menstrual resumption rate at 12 months after chemotherapy was 48.3% in the EC-P group compared with 63.1% in the EP-P group, with an absolute difference of 14.8% (P < .001) and an estimated odds ratio of 1.83. For the second primary endpoint of disease-free survival (DFS), the 5-year DFS rate was 78.3% in the EC-P group compared with 84.7% in the EP-P group. There was no statistically significant difference in distant disease–free survival or overall survival. Post hoc exploratory analysis found that the successful pregnancy rate was higher in the EP-P group (9.6% vs 2.7%; P = .03).
- Cyclophosphamide-free chemotherapy may be associated with a higher probability of menses resumption with potential fertility implications and minimal impact on disease-free and overall survival.
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New report out
“The hormonal (endocrine-related) therapies that serve as a backbone for treatment of both (breast and prostratecancers improve survival but also increase cardiovascular morbidity and mortality among survivors. This consensus statement describes the risks associated with specific hormonal therapies used to treat breast and prostate cancer and provides an evidence-based approach to prevent and detect adverse cardiovascular outcomes.“
https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/HCG.00000000000000820 -
Thanks AlabameDee. Interesting (selfishly) to me that they included tamoxifen and raloxifen under SERMs but not toremifene.
Also ugh.
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Alabama - thank you for the post, one more question to ask the oncologist, see if it is being monitored and what to do about it. Probably another damn drug. Starting to feel like the little old lady who swallowed a spider to catch the fly that wiggled inside her. I don't know why she swallowed the fly..........
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FDA to scrutinize unproven cancer drugs after 10-year gap
Each year the U.S. approves dozens of new uses for cancer drugs based on early signs that they can shrink or slow the spread of tumors.
But how often do those initial results translate into longer, healthier lives for patients?
Tuesday ... the Food and Drug Administration convenes the first meeting in a decade to consider clawing back approvals from several cancer drugs that have failed to show they extend or improve life.
...many researchers say it has failed to crack down on medications that don't deliver on their early promise, leaving a glut of expensive, unproven cancer drugs on the market.
spending on cancer drugs has more than doubled since 2013 to over $60 billion annually, according to the data firm IQVIA. New medications typically cost $90,000 to $300,000 a year. And those prices have risen much faster than patient survival.
The FDA is prohibited from considering cost, but it is supposed to keep ineffective drugs off the market.
...Harvard researchers dug into that claim, they found that only about 20% of cancer drugs had actually been shown to extend lives.
https://apnews.com/article/us-news-health-science-...
{Free access to reporting.}
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That seems like great news Lumpie. It is frustrating that it took so long.
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Even if a drug does not extend life, if it improves quality of life, it deserves approval. (Anyone who is in treatment for stage iv cancer knows this!) Also, sometimes a drug may not show great results for a whole study group, but may work well for some people, and it should be available to them
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Shetland Pony, I agree, thanks for saying this. I was apprehensive at reading that.
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One of the rapid approvals they were reconsidering was the drug I'm currently on - atezolizumab/Tecentriq. Two very conflicting trial results (Impassion 130 and Impassion 131)
It was a 7-2 vote to keep it for mTNBC https://www.onclive.com/view/fda-panel-supports-at...
"The FDA's Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee voted 7 to 2 in support of maintaining the indication of atezolizumab in combination with nab-paclitaxel as a treatment for adult patients with unresectable locally advanced or metastatic triple-negative breast cancer whose tumors are PD-L1 positive."
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When you read quotes from Zeke Emanuel, understand that he wrote this in 2014:
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/...
and recently updated thoughts:
https://www.advisory.com/daily-briefing/2019/08/26...
So that's the oncologist in the article above saying it doesn't matter if you die from a big tumor or a small tumor because you're still dead.
Good lord, I don't want a guy like that deciding what drugs that have already been approved are not "worth" keeping available to cancer patients.
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Tectonic shift - yes, I saw his name and I am a long time non-fan of that guy. Imagine him as your personal oncologist, I shudder at the thought.
He doesn't belong anywhere near public health care planning but unfortunately, he is well connected.
Love this take on old people /not really
"These people who live a vigorous life to 70, 80, 90 years of age—when I look at what those people 'do,' almost all of it is what I classify as play. It's not meaningful work," he said. "They're riding motorcycles; they're hiking. Which can all have value—don't get me wrong. But if it's the main thing in your life? Ummm, that's not probably a meaningful life."
And here’s commentary on the other guy, from a Statnews article :“His critics, however, say Prasad is putting too much weight on statistical tables, instead of listening to the real-world experience of real-life patients and physicians. They also dismiss him as a generalist who doesn't really understand the specialty fields he so angrily attacks — and doesn't try to.
"He never wanted to hear the other side," said Dr. Ben Davies, a urologist at University of Pittsburgh who has clashed online with Prasad. "In general, there's an absolutism to his voice, which grates a lot of researchers the wrong way."
Dr. Tomasz Beer, a prostate cancer researcher at OHSU — and the man responsible for bringing Prasad up to Portland — has been called upon to defend some of his more controversial remarks: "I've gotten calls from people at respected institutions saying, 'Why the hell did you hire this guy?'" Beer said. "My answer: We support academic freedom and he's doing good work."
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Thanks for sharing the articles. It shows us what we are up against.
😳”But if it's the main thing in your life? Ummm, that's not probably a meaningful life.“
Oh the arrogance of such a quote. Who is this person to assume he knows what later in life activities qualify as meaningful. Just being a grandparent and great grandparent is soooo meaningful, not only for the person but for society. I could go on. 😡
I just had a conversation with an endocrinologist for a couple of issues to get her opinion. While she responded reasonably to the issues, when we discussed my weekly burst prednisone therapy that gives me tolerable QOL from my trial SE, she actually said that prednisone was just as bad as narcotics. 🙄. I won’t be going back to her.
Dee
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Picking an age to die by (Ezekiel J. Emanuel) makes no sense considering the wide range in health/ quality of life in all age groups. And everyone has to define that for themselves. I think back to years ago when I stopped to apologize to a bicyclist I thought I had run of the road. He told me everything was fine and that he was turning. Then he asked me to guess how old he was. Turns out he was 95!! We chatted a while. When I asked him what the secret was to such a long life, he asked me to lean in really close so that noone else would hear. "Keep breathing" he whispered. I laughed, and replied, "and a sense of humor"
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wonderful interaction blue girl. And reminds me of when I was driving to my appointments pretty early on, Ariana Grande’s song used to come on the radio “Just keep breathing, breathing, breathing...”. I turned it into a mantra. And humor is definitely a plus! Love this.
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this is going to sound terrible but that doctor and all his viewpoints shows how sanctimonious and pompous some doctors can be. Thank goodness they're not all that way.
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Vaccine Therapy to Prevent Recurrences in HER2-Positive Breast Cancer
Brief interview with Lee S. Schwartzberg MD, FACP about vaccine research. Spoiler alert: seems promising. Read the transcript or listen to the narrative.
https://www.practiceupdate.com/C/117405/56?elsca1=...
{No charge to red/listen but registration may be required.}
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Regarding drug approval: part of the consideration is whether the now drug is less expensive than currently available options. This seems questionable to me. We still don't fully understand why some drugs work in one patient but not in another. Patients have allergic reactions to some drugs but not others. It seems to me that having more in one's proverbial arsenal is an advantage in an of itself.
As regards an age to die: kind of silly. People's outlooks change. Think of how many people early in life practically say "broken bone? Euthanize me!" but in later life say "not so fast!." One's outlook changes with one's circumstances.
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In breast, prostate cancer survivors, hormonal therapies may raise CV risk
Hormonal therapies for the treatment of breast and prostate cancers may improve survival among patients with cancer, but also may confer poor CV {cardiovascular} outcomes among survivors.
3 minute read with links.
https://www.healio.com/news/cardiology/20210428/qa...
{Access to article is free but may require registration.}
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