2004 ARCHIVE

Breast Cancer Fundraiser Kicks Off Early
Quilt Raffle to fund the Emergency Fund
New Fund Started to Honor Cindy Dimenstein
Breast Cancer Shows Up on MRIs
Milk-duct Breast Cancer Survival Rates Good
Link between weight and breast cancer
Elderly Women Survival Improves
POPS and Breast Cancer
Legislative Alert! Breast Cancer Stamp Expired
NEWS 2006 ARCHIVE
NEWS 2005 ARCHIVE
NEWS 2003 ARCHIVE

BREAST CANCER FUNDRAISER KICKS OFF EARLY

Due to the numerous requests from customers to allow them to donate before the official start of the Charity Sales fundraiser for the Connecticut Breast Cancer Coalition Foundation, Malloves Jewelers had to start collecting money on September 29th rather than October 1st.

“How incredible this was for us,” said Marc Levin, owner of Malloves Jewelers, “We’ve done seven fundraisers for seven different organizations over the past three years and we have never had a response like this.”

For a $5.00 donation, customers will receive a free Nomination starter bracelet and a golden nugget which can be scratched for a chance to win diamond earrings and several other prizes. “Customers aren’t really interested in the prizes though,” said Levin, “they only want to help the Breast Cancer Coaltion. The prizes are just icing on the cake!”

As of Monday, no one had won the diamond earrings. The public is invited to stop in to participate in this fundraiser. Malloves Jewelers is located at 404 Main Street in Middletown. Their hours are Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday from 9:30 a.m. until 5:30 p.m., Thursdays until 7:00 p.m. and Saturdays 9:30 a.m. until 5:00 p.m.

QUILT RAFFLE TO FUND THE EMERGENCY FUND

A group of quilters in Weston made a quilt for the CBCC, for which we are very grateful. The raffle will be held on January 23, 2005. The money raised will fund the Breast Cancer Emergency Fund.

For information about raffle tickets, please write to sdavis@cbccf.org.

NEW FUND STARTED TO HONOR CINDY DIMENSTEIN

The Connecticut Breast Cancer Coalition/Foundation is pleased to announce the start of the Cindy Dimenstein Fund, honoring a long-time Westport resident who died of the disease at the age of 40. This native of Fairfield lost her long battle with breast cancer nearly two years ago.

Cindy’s husband Nick and her three children have been raising money for breast cancer research for several years—but this year they have been asking friends and family members to help them start the Cindy Dimenstein Fund, which will be run through the Connecticut Breast Cancer Foundation. “The fund is a tribute to Cindy—and it brings together her search for a cure for breast cancer and her dedication to education. Cindy touched so many lives while she was with us—this fund would allow her to keep doing that,” says Susan Davis, president of the Coalition.

Cindy’s kids created letters and drawings to ask people to contribute to the fund that will honor their mom and bear her name.The CT Breast Cancer Coalition Foundation is thrilled to be starting this fund. It is a 501(3) corporation—so donations are tax deductible. The CBCC recently was involved in the passage of the “Wig Bill” through the Connecticut Legislature—and as of October 1, 2004, insurance companies will be mandated to provide wigs for women who lose their hair from chemo or radiation treatments. The CBCC was also involved with ending “drive-thru” mastectomies in Connecticut. The CBCC runs several educational programs for the women of Connecticut and provides help to women diagnosed with breast cancer, in addition to their advocacy efforts.

Please send donations to the Cindy Dimenstein Fund, CBCC/F, P.O. Box 1297, Weston, CT 06883.

For more information about this release, please contact Susan Davis at 203 247-3693.

BREAST CANCERS SHOW UP ON MAGNETIC RESONANCE IMAGING

MRI can effectively detect cancers missed by mammography and physical examination, but cancers can have some surprising characteristics on the MR image, a new study shows.

“The study included 59 women with 65 cancers that were not detected by physical examination or on a mammogram,” said Lia Bartella, MD, assistant professor of radiology at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. “The classic criteria for cancer on an MR image is a mass that looks bright after contrast media is injected into the breast, but it quite quickly loses its brightness,” said Dr. Bartella. “In 63% of these patients, this didn't happen,” she said. “The mass took up the contrast, but there was no quick washout,” she said. One lesion showed progressive kinetics, which means that it got brighter and brighter on the MR image. “This often happens when the lesion is benign,” Dr. Bartella said. In addition, Dr. Bartella noted that “in 62% of the cases, the cancer did not look like a mass.”

“Most of the cancers (70%) were stage 1 disease; 28% were stage 2, and 2% of the women had distant metastases, indicating that MRI can detect breast cancer at an early stage,” said Dr. Bartella. “Most of the women (68%) had a mastectomy,” Dr. Bartella said. “It is important to note that these women chose mastectomy; MRI offered most of them the chance to have breast-conserving treatment because their disease was caught early,” she said.

“These women were sent for an MRI examination for several reasons: 13 of the women were at high risk of breast cancer; 41 of the women had known breast cancer, and the MRI was done to determine the extent of disease; and five of the women had an MRI after a problem was detected, but physicians were unsure of the diagnosis,” said Dr. Bartella.

MILK-DUCT BREAST CANCER SURVIVAL RATES GOOD, NEW STUDY FINDS

Women with an early type of breast cancer have a good chance of surviving even if the disease returns after the initial treatment, doctors said this week.

Ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) is a non-invasive early cancer that is restricted to the milk ducts in the breast. It is becoming more common as mammograms pick up early signs of the disease, but how it is treated varies.

If DCIS is extensive, a mastectomy may be necessary. Otherwise patients may have a lumpectomy, in which only part of the breast is removed, which may be followed by a course of radiotherapy to destroy any cancerous cells left behind.

Professor Dennis Holmes of the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine told the Fourth European Breast Cancer Conference that although the risk of the cancer returning is higher with a lumpectomy, long-term survival is the same. “These results show that nearly all patients with DCIS whose cancer recurs can be treated successfully, whether or not DCIS recurs as new DCIS or invasive cancer,” he said.

About half of recurrences of DCIS are invasive cancer which is more serious because it can spread to other parts of the body. In a study of 1,136 patients, Holmes and his colleagues said 30 percent of women who had a lumpectomy had a recurrence after 10 years compared to 18 percent who a lumpectomy and radiotherapy and 1.8 percent who had chosen to have a mastectomy. “The 10-year rate of deaths from all causes and from breast cancer specifically is statistically similar across all three groups,” he added.

In a small group of patients whose DCIS returned as invasive cancer, the chances of survival were better than 90 percent. Holmes stressed that patients must be rigorously monitored so that any signs of a recurrence can be picked up and treated as early as possible.

“Mastectomy is associated with the lowest risk of local recurrence but provides no survival advantage when compared with breast conservation therapy,” he added.

LINK BETWEEN WEIGHT AND BREAST CANCER

The amount of weight a woman gains after age 18 is a strong signal as to whether she will get breast cancer later in life, according to new research released Wednesday by the American Cancer Society.

In one of the largest studies of weight and breast cancer to date, researchers said older women who gained 20 to 30 pounds after high school graduation were 40 percent more likely to get breast cancer than women who kept weight off.

The risk doubled if a woman gained more than 70 pounds, said Heather Spencer Feigelson, senior epidemiologist with the American Cancer Society.

“Breast cancer is strongly dependent on body weight,” Feigelson said. “Even modest amounts of weight gain lead to a significantly increased risk of breast cancer.”

Weight gain and body mass have long been known to be risk factors for breast cancer.

The cancer society estimates weight contributes to between one-third and one-half of all breast cancer deaths among older women.

Fat tissues makes estrogen, and estrogen can help make breast cancer grow. Weight gain also is the second leading cause of all cancers, according to research the Atlanta-based society published last year in the New England Journal of Medicine.

ELDERLY WOMEN SURVIVAL IMPROVES WITH SURGERY PLUS RADIATION OR CHEMOTHERAPY

Swiss researchers report that many elderly women with breast cancer appear to have died because they did not receive full or appropriate treatment for their disease. Their study, published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, reported that breast cancer patients over age 80 who did not receive adequate treatment had a much higher death rate from their cancer than women who did receive proper treatment. Twenty-two percent of women diagnosed with this cancer in the U.S. are over age 75.

Many of these women have other illnesses -- high blood pressure, diabetes, or arthritis, for instance -- that may or may not be life-threatening. Because of this, sometimes doctors or the patients themselves are reluctant to consider appropriate cancer treatment, which includes surgery, radiation and chemotherapy.

Half of Elderly Women Undertreated

The Swiss researchers examined the records of 407 women diagnosed with breast cancer who were 80 or older. About half were undertreated. They either did not have any surgery, or had lumpectomy without post-operative radiation. Reserachers couldn’t find out why these patients did not have other treatment. One possibility is that the doctors thought the women were too sick to benefit from treatment, or more likely to die of another disease first. The patients themselves may have believed this, too; 14% of them refused some or all of the recommended treatment.

Doctors and patients also may have thought that breast cancer in the elderly is somehow less dangerous than it is in younger women, though that is not necessarily true.

Consequences of Undertreatment Deadly

When the researchers examined the survival patterns of these women, they found that less therapy meant a quicker death from breast cancer. The researchers specifically looked at women who died of their breast cancer.

Women who received complete therapy, including surgery and extra treatments such as radiation or drug therapy, had a five-year survival of around 90%. Those receiving no treatment had a five-year survival of around 46%. Women who were given some treatment such as surgery without any additional therapy had survival rates that were between these extremes.

Some doctors or patients are reluctant to consider surgery and instead try to get by using oral estrogen blockers only, because it is noninvasive and easy to administer.

The authors point out that the problem of undertreatment may stem from a belief that elderly patients do not tolerate treatment. But they cite several studies that show that these patients tolerate chemotherapy and radiation as well as younger women.

The researchers say doctors need to consider each woman’s general health, then provide treatments that “offer the best chance of cure, regardless of age.”

POPs AND BREAST CANCER

A recent study of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences established an association between Persistent Organochloride Pollutants (POPs) and breast cancer. Researchers found that breast cancer rates were higher for pre-menopausal women in Wisconsin who consumed sport fish contaminated with PCB’s (used in electronics and other industrial and consumer products), DDT (an organochlorine pesticide), and PBDE’s (flame retardants). These toxic chemicals are commonly found in a number of rivers and lakes in Wisconsin, and similar pollution is found in several other waterways around the country and the world.

Both PCB’s and DDT were banned in the U.S. in the 1970’s. Both can still be found in the body fat of humans and animals, although levels have declined since they were banned. Levels of PBDE’s, on the other hand, have risen exponentially. PBDE’s were recently banned in California, but have not yet been banned at the national level.

Read the study: Potential Exposure to PCB's, DDT, and PBDE's from Sport-Caught Fish Consumption in Relation to Breast Cancer Risk in Wisconsin
http://ehpnet1.niehs.nih.gov/members/2003/6506/6506.pdf (Link will open in a new window and requires Adobe’s free Acrobat Reader to view.)

For more on PCB’s, DDT and breast cancer read:
The State of the Evidence: What is the Connection Between Chemicals and Breast Cancer? http://www.bcaction.org/PDF/StateofEvidence.pdf (Link will open in a new window and requires Adobe’s free Acrobat Reader to view.)

LEGISLATIVE ALERT!

The Breast Cancer stamp has expired. The beautiful stamp provided money for breast cancer research. The stamp is currently not being sold. To get the stamp back into production, Congress has to extend the original legislation for two more years.

The Senate has passed the bill to extend the stamp for another two years. EVERYONE needs to contact their Congress Representative to ask that the extension for the Breast Cancer Stamp come up for a vote as soon as possible. It is due to come up for a vote around January 21st — 24th.

You can find your Congressman/woman here: http://www.congress.org/ (link opens in new window)

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