Breast Cancer Archive

Research we're watching

Treatment for women with a type of early breast cancer called ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) might not be doing enough to prevent deaths from the disease, says a study published online Sept. 16, 2020, by JAMA Network Open. The study sought to determine whether women diagnosed with DCIS had a higher risk of dying from breast cancer than women who did not have the disease. They looked at 144,524 women who were diagnosed with DCIS from 1994 and 2014 and then treated for the condition. Researchers compared them against women without DCIS from the general population. They found that the women with DCIS had three times the risk of dying of breast cancer in the follow-up period, which ran until December 2016, than women without DCIS. Study authors suggest ways that might identify which women with DCIS need more aggressive therapy to prevent breast cancer death.

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Overall risk is very small, and older women who used hormonal contraceptives many years ago aren't likely to have a higher risk.

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Hormonal birth control — whether it comes as pills, injections, a ring, an intrauterine device (IUD), or an implant — may raise your risk of breast cancer, according to a study published Dec. 7, 2017, in The New England Journal of Medicine.

If you're like many women who currently use one of these contraceptive methods, or if you used one for years in the past, should you be worried?

Could a closer look at your mammogram help guide efforts to prevent heart disease?

Your mammogram could offer a glimpse at more than just the health of your breasts. It may also provide important clues about your heart.

When a radiologist reads a mammogram, she or he sometimes sees little white streaks that look like lines of chalk inside the arteries of your breast. These lines are actually deposits of calcium called arterial calcifications. If you have them, it could mean that you have similar deposits in other arteries inside your body, including those that bring blood to your heart muscle — a known risk factor for heart disease.

Ask the doctors

Q. I've heard that walking could reduce my risk of breast cancer. Is this true?

A. Yes, it's true. Walking is not only a great form of exercise to help keep your heart healthy, it could potentially reduce your risk of breast cancer. One 2013 study, published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, found that women who walked seven hours a week — an hour a day on average — had a 14% lower chance of getting breast cancer when compared with women who walked three hours a week or less. The benefit was seen even in women who were at higher risk for breast cancer, including those who were overweight or who were taking hormone therapy. It's not clear how walking helps, but experts speculate that physical activity might help keep the body's levels of estrogen and insulin in check. Both of these hormones can fuel breast cancer, so regulating them more effectively could reduce your risk.

Breast pain after menopause can come in many forms

Menopause has come and gone. Why do I still have breast pain?

In most cases, breast pain is a by-product of reproductive life: Like breast swelling, it waxes and wanes during the menstrual cycle, and it's one of the first symptoms of pregnancy. Many women expect breast pain to go away after menopause. When it doesn't, they may fear they have breast cancer. Fortunately, breast pain is rarely a symptom of cancer, regardless of age. Still, that possibility should be considered, along with a number of noncancerous conditions that affect the breasts.

Research we're watching

Your diet may influence your breast cancer risk. An analysis of 20 studies by researchers from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, which was published online April 6, 2020, by the journal Cancer, found that women who ate the most fiber were 8% less likely to go on to develop breast cancer compared with the women who ate the least.

The reduction in breast cancer risk was seen for both premenopausal and postmenopausal breast cancers, as well as different types of breast cancer, including those that were estrogen and progesterone receptor–positive and estrogen and progesterone receptor–negative. Researchers from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health said that that the reduction may be due to fiber's effect in reducing both blood sugar and estrogen levels in the body.

There's no easy answer to this question. Rather, women should make the decision based on their individual needs.

Most women don't look forward to their routine mammogram, which can be uncomfortable and stressful. You may wonder: Is there an age when can you dispense with this regular chore? 75, 80, 85?

The truth is that experts haven't determined a magic age when women no longer need breast cancer screening — largely because scientific evidence in this area is lacking, says Dr. Kathryn Rexrode, associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and chief of the Division of Women's Health at Brigham and Women's Hospital. But many experts also agree that continuing mammography might not be the right choice beyond age 75. The real question, they say, is what is the right age for you to stop based on your individual needs? To decide, you need to understand both the potential risks and benefits of breast cancer screening.

Research we're watching

According to a report published March 12 in the journal Cancer, the rate of death from cancer has continued to decline in the United States, dropping on average 1.5% a year from 2001 to 2017. The decline showed up for all ethnic and age groups between 2013 and 2017. The findings were based on cancer incidence data collected by the CDC and the National Cancer Institute.

But not all news was good: the number of new cancer diagnoses in women rose slightly during 2012 to 2016. A more detailed look at cancer deaths among women found a drop in cancer deaths for a majority of the most common cancers, including breast cancer, melanoma, lung cancer, and colorectal cancer. But deaths in women increased when it came to uterine, brain, liver, heart, and pancreatic cancer.

The question of what age a woman can stop having mammograms does not have a definite answer, but is one each woman must answer based on her circumstances and her feelings about the risks of the procedure versus its benefits.