BREAST CANCER EDUCATIONAL VIDEOS
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Breast Cancer and Hip Size
Yikes - can it really be true that hip size is a predictor for the
risk of getting breast cancer? A new study suggests that it might be.
Scientists from the UK's Southhampton University have shown that women whose mothers have wide and round hips could be seven times more likely to develop breast cancer
It seems that a women's hip size is a marker of her oestrogen production.
Wide, round hips represent markers of high sex hormone concentrations and if your mother has wide hips then you - the daughter - could be at increased
risk of breast cancer.
The study looked at the health of over 6,000 Finnish women born from 1934 to 1944 and comparing it with information on their mothers' hip size. The measurement used was the intercristal diameter -- the distance from hip bone to hip bone.
According to the findings, a woman's
risk of breast cancer went up by 60 per cent if her mother's hips were more than 30 cm across. The risk increased with hip size and with the length of time the baby was in the womb.
I'm not sure how this fits into the big picture of breast cancer awareness but it's certainly food for thought.
Labels: breast-cancer, breast-cancer-risk, living-with-cancer
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New Herceptin Information from the HERA studyHerceptin is going to form a big part of Marjory's treatment program. New
research data from a huge international trial of
Herceptin in early breast cancer has been released in the last few days. This shows that women treated with Herceptin had their risk of cancer recurrence reduced by about 35% and their risk of death reduced by about the same amount.
Please read my other recent posts about
herceptin treatment and about
new breast cancer drugs when you're taking this information into account. Remember that herceptin only works in women whose breast cancer is susceptible to it - so called HER2 positive breast cancer. About twenty five percent of women with breast cancer have a tumour that will respond to
herceptin treatment.
The HERA trial is one of the largest breast cancer research studies ever done. It looked at more than 5000 women with HER2 positive breast cancer around the world.
The HERA study will report results again in the coming months about whether taking Herceptin for two years is any better than taking it for one year. The study is still going on so that information is not available yet.
Concern about herceptin causing damage to the heart has also been eased by the HERA study results. Only 0.6% of women who took herceptin showed any significant signs of heart problems.
These results provide yet more good news for those women whose breast cancer can respond to herceptin. New guidelines for treatment with herceptin in the UK are expected soon.
Gordon
This site now has several herceptin treatment articles - you should check them out for more information relating to herceptin's place in breast cancer treatment
Labels: breast-cancer, breast-cancer-risk, herceptin, living-with-cancer
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