http://medicalxpress.com/ en-us Medical Xpress internet news portal provides the latest news on Health and Medicine. A study that aimed to understand how the cancer drug everolimus helps overcome the resistance breast cancers can develop to trastuzumab has left researchers contemplating a puzzle. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-everolimus-trastuzumab-resistance-her-positive.html Cancer Thu, 02 May 2013 10:35:22 EST news286709710 Researchers at Fox Chase Cancer Center have identified a host of small molecules critical to metabolism in cells of triple-negative breast cancer—one of the least understood groups of breast cancer. These molecules, called metabolites, include key players in energy regulation and lipid synthesis. They could help pave the way for helping researchers differentiate among different forms of the disease and ultimately point to new targets for treatment. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-04-critical-metabolic-triple-negative-breast-cancer.html Cancer Tue, 09 Apr 2013 13:00:01 EST news284730706 (Medical Xpress)—Bioengineering researchers at University of California, Santa Barbara have found that changing the shape of chemotherapy drug nanoparticles from spherical to rod-shaped made them up to 10,000 times more effective at specifically targeting and delivering anti-cancer drugs to breast cancer cells. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-02-chemotherapy-drugs-cancer-cells.html Cancer Wed, 27 Feb 2013 14:56:32 EST news281199376 Patients with HER2-positive breast cancer being treated with anti-HER2 therapy may be able to prevent or delay resistance to the therapy with the addition of a phosphatidylinositol-3 kinase inhibitor to their treatment regimens. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-01-treatment-pi3k-resistance-anti-her2-therapy.html Cancer Wed, 23 Jan 2013 13:59:45 EST news278171977 (HealthDay)—For patients with human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2)-positive early-stage breast cancer, one year of adjuvant trastuzumab should remain the standard of care, according to a study presented at the annual San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, held from Dec. 4 to 8. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-12-sabcs-benefit-trastuzumab-her2-breast.html Cancer Fri, 07 Dec 2012 15:00:01 EST news274113482 Heart failure is a relatively common complication in older women with breast cancer, but the risk is even higher in those patients treated with adjuvant trastuzumab (Herceptin), Yale School of Medicine researchers report in the current issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-11-heart-failure-older-breast-cancer.html Cardiology Wed, 14 Nov 2012 15:30:01 EST news272129356 (HealthDay)—For women with operable breast cancer, moderate immunohistochemical expression of human epidermal growth factor receptor (HER)-2 (2+) without amplification of HER-2 (HER-2 2+/HER-2−) is an adverse prognostic factor, according to a study published online Sept. 4 in The Oncologist. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-10-adverse-prognostic-factor-idd-breast.html Cancer Tue, 30 Oct 2012 16:30:01 EST news270831740 New studies that advance understanding of the optimal duration of therapy with the targeted cancer drug trastuzumab were released today at the ESMO 2012 Congress of the European Society for Medical Oncology in Vienna. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-10-optimal-duration-trastuzumab-therapy-women.html Cancer Mon, 01 Oct 2012 03:33:41 EST news268281190 Two new studies presented at the ESMO 2012 Congress in Vienna, Austria show how improvements in breast cancer treatments are making it possible for more women to conserve their breasts following therapy, but raise concerns about whether enough women are being offered these approaches. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-09-women-breast-conserving-treatment.html Cancer Sun, 30 Sep 2012 06:27:50 EST news268205243 Women who have breast cancer and are treated with two chemotherapy drugs may experience more cardiac problems like heart failure than shown in previous studies, according to a new Cancer Research Network study by Group Health researchers and others in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-08-heart-problems-chemo-drugs-breast.html Cancer Thu, 30 Aug 2012 16:00:01 EST news265550767 A new study has identified a key mechanism that causes breast cancer to spread. The research, published by Cell Press on March 30th in the journal Molecular Cell, enhances our knowledge about the signals that drive cancer metastasis and identifies new therapeutic targets for a lethal form of invasive breast cancer that is notoriously resistant to treatment. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-03-mechanism-breast-cancer-invasive.html Cancer Thu, 29 Mar 2012 12:00:03 EST news252240001 Breast cancers expressing the protein HER2 have a particularly poor prognosis. Treatment with trastuzumab (Herceptin) benefits some patients with HER2-positive breast cancer, but it is not as effective as had been hoped. Researchers are therefore seeking ways to enhance the effectiveness of trastuzumab. In this context, a team of researchers led by Ronald Levy, at Stanford University, Stanford, has identified a sequential treatment regimen that enhances the effectivenss of trastuzumab in xenotransplant models of breast cancer. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-02-effectiveness-breast-cancer-treatment.html Cancer Mon, 13 Feb 2012 13:37:37 EST news248362643 In patients with HER2-positive breast cancer, Tykerb (lapatinib) has been used both in combination with herceptin (trastuzumab) and as an alternative single-agent therapy for pre-surgery (neo-adjuvant) chemotherapy treatment. Two new studies are published today on these drugs. One published by The Lancet Oncology, showing lapatinib to be less beneficial than trastuzumab for single-agent therapy, and one by The Lancet showing that combining both drugs appears almost twice as effective as single-agent therapy (although lapatinib causes more side-effects). http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-01-role-lapatinib-trastuzumab-her2-positive.html Cancer Mon, 16 Jan 2012 18:30:01 EST news245930332 Adding pertuzumab to a combination of trastuzumab and docetaxel chemotherapy extended progression-free survival by a median of 6.1 months in patients with metastatic HER2-positive breast cancer compared with patients who received the combination therapy with placebo. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-12-dual-her2-blockade-significantly-progression-free.html Cancer Thu, 08 Dec 2011 03:53:03 EST news242538772 The first randomised trial to investigate the use of trastuzumab emtansine (T-DM1) – an antibody-guided drug – for the initial treatment of HER2- (human epidermal growth factor receptor-2) positive metastatic breast cancer has shown that it makes a significant difference to the time women live without their disease worsening. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-09-phase-ii-cancer-drug-combination.html Cancer Sun, 25 Sep 2011 04:40:01 EST news236142580 (Medical Xpress) -- The first study to investigate the effect of the breast cancer drug trastuzumab (Herceptin) on heart and vascular function in elderly patients has found that it increases the risk of heart problems, particularly in women with a history of heart disease, diabetes or both. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-08-trastuzumab-heart-problems-elderly-history.html Cancer Wed, 10 Aug 2011 02:43:32 EST news232162973