Best of Breast: news for week ending 28 November 2014

Highlights of medical developments in the world of cancer and breast cancer, from Google Alerts, for the week ending 28 November 2014.

Two topics caught my eye for this week’s round-up:  a cancer detection test and research done into tamoxifen resistance.

The cancer test was presented at a Ted talk and what it promises is a “cheap, open-source device that can test blood for several types of cancer at once”.  I like the word “cheap”.  It means cancer patients can afford to get more frequent testing without worrying about costs.  There are loads of different tests out there, some which depend on tumour markers, some on circulating tumour cells, some on growth factors, or inflammation markers in the body.  But they all cost money.  And the time to be vigilant is not only when you have active disease, but when you are in remission because cancer never goes away … it just becomes latent and you want to detect those treatment-resistant stem cells early on when they rear their ugly heads again.

Tamoxifen, as you probably are aware, is an estrogen antagonist (or blocker), and therefore used for estrogen-positive breast cancer.  Tamoxifen-resistance is an interest of mine ever since I discovered that I’m an intermediate metaboliser of tamoxifen and therefore it’s no bloody good taking it in lower doses.  In case you are interested, the test for whether or not you are metabolising tamoxifen properly is the cytochrome P450 for the CYP2D6 Genotype test [with thanks to Grace Gawler, cancer strategist, who pointed me in the direction of this test!].  Both the Mayo Clinic and Roche offer this test.  Tamoxifen-resistance is something that most cancer patients aren’t aware of.  Tamoxifen is touted as a cure-all, but it’s a fact that after some time, cancer cells evolve to find ways around estrogen blockers – clever buggers, and then it’s back to the drawing board to find yet another chemical cosh.

1.  New Device Detects Multiple Types Of Cancer With A Single Blood Test

Best of Breast: news for week ending 11 July 2014

New developments in Breast Cancer and Cancer, from Google Alerts, for the week ending 11 July 2014.

How to name a cancer protein/gene

I’ve often wondered how scientists come up with the names for these discoveries.  It’s not as if TARBP2 or alpha v beta 6 trip off the tongue.  I have a theory that scientists just dip their spoons into a can of alphabet soup, and whatever comes up is the name du jour … .

Something I’ve had to do this week is re-write a number of headlines.  Some of the tabloids seem to view every discovery of a new oncogene or signalling pathway as a !BREAKTHROUGH! in treatment.  Now that I’ve been scanning developments for more than a year, I’m more realistic.  Most of these “breakthroughs” have been realised only on rodents, and they’re also years away from commercial release, plus they’re only one bit in the jigsaw puzzle that is cancer.  I hate it when newspapers tout the latest cure for cancer, which is anything but.