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Awareness weeks guide

Health Awareness Week

Breast Cancer Awareness Month

October 2022

Breast cancer remains the most common cancer among Australian women (excluding non-melanoma skin cancer). Survival rates continue to improve in Australia with 89 out of every 100 women diagnosed with invasive breast cancer now surviving five or more years beyond diagnosis. Cancer Australia

 

UpToDate

Diagnosis

Prevention

Treatment

AIHW

Articles

Diagnosis

Research

Risk

Treatment

E-books

E-journals

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AIHW

BreastScreen Australia monitoring report 2022
50% of women in the targeted age group of 50–74 participated in the BreastScreen Australia in 2019–2020, with around 1.8 million screening. Breast cancer mortality has decreased since BreastScreen Australia began, from 74 deaths per 100,000 women aged 50–74 in 1991, to 41 deaths per 100,000 women in 2020. AIHW 4 October 2022

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Diagnosis

Role of immunohistochemical markers in breast carcinoma and other breast pathologies: A review with a note on recent update
This review focus’ on diagnostic immunomarkers. However, the main goal of this review is to assess the diagnostic value of the most commonly investigated immunomarkers in the field of breast pathology by a review of the literature utilising the PubMed database of indexed publications from 1976 to 2022 Southeast Asian journal of case report and review  19 July 2022

Liquid biopsy as a tool for the diagnosis, treatment, and monitoring of breast cancer
Breast cancer (BC) is a highly heterogeneous disease. The treatment of BC is complicated owing to intratumoral complexity. Tissue biopsy and immunohistochemistry are the current gold standard techniques to guide breast cancer therapy; however, these techniques do not assess tumoral molecular heterogeneity. Personalized medicine aims to overcome these biological and clinical complexities. Advances in techniques and computational analyses have enabled increasingly sensitive, specific, and accurate application of liquid biopsy. Such progress has ushered in a new era in precision medicine, where the objective is personalized treatment of breast cancer, early screening, accurate diagnosis and prognosis, relapse detection, longitudinal monitoring, and drug selection. Liquid biopsy can be defined as the sampling of components of tumor cells that are released from a tumor and/or metastatic deposits into the blood, urine, feces, saliva, and other biological substances. Such components include circulating tumor cells (CTCs), circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) or circulating tumor RNA (ctRNA), platelets, and exosomes. This review aims to highlight the role of liquid biopsy in breast cancer and precision medicine. International journal of molecular sciences 1 September 2022

The value of clinical breast examination in a breast cancer surveillance program for women with germline BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutations
Clinical breast examination did not increase the number of breast cancers detected in MRI‐screened women with BRCA1/2 mutations. Removing breast examination from surveillance programs that include MRI may be reasonable for these women. MJA 13 September 2022

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Research

Current and future burden of breast cancer: Global statistics for 2020 and 2040
Highlights

  • With over 2.3 million new cases and 685,000 deaths in 2020, breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer worldwide.
  • Most cases occur in transitioned countries yet transitioning countries have disproportionate share of breast cancer deaths.
  • The future burden of breast cancer is predicted to increase to over 3 million new cases and 1 million deaths in 2040.

The Breast 2 September 2022

Male breast cancer: An updated review of epidemiology, clinicopathology, and treatment
Male breast cancer (MaBC) is a rare clinical entity, which makes up approximately 1% of all breast cancers. However, the incidence of MaBC has been steadily increasing over the past few decades. The risk factors for MaBC include age, black race, family history of breast cancer, genetic mutations, liver cirrhosis, and testicular abnormalities. The majority of patients with MaBC present with painless lumps, and about half of the patients have at least one lymph node involved at the time of diagnosis. The treatment of MaBC models that of female breast cancer (FeBC), but this is mainly due to lack of prospective studies for MaBC patients. The treatment modality includes surgery, adjuvant radiation, endocrine therapy, and chemotherapy. However, there are some distinct features of MaBC, both clinically and molecularly, that may warrant a different clinical approach. Ongoing multinational effort is required, to conduct clinical trials for MaBC, or the inclusion of MaBC patients in FeBC trials, to help clinicians improve care for MaBC patients. Journal of oncology 24 May 2022

Uptake of bilateral-risk-reducing-mastectomy: Prospective analysis of 7195 women at high-risk of breast cancer
Highlights

  • Bilateral-Risk-Reducing-Mastectomy (BRRM)The Breast  continues even 20 years post original breast cancer risk assessment.
  • Potential triggers include death of mother/sister, children and a breast biopsy.
  • Uptake is clearly informed by lifetime risk of BC and higher in younger the women.

The Breast 26 August 2021

Mother–child dyad support needs to be expressed by mothers diagnosed with breast cancer
The findings revealed that mother-reported support needs of ill mothers and their children included support for improving children's emotional well-being and mothers' emotional coping, preparing for uncertainty, and promoting intimacy in the mother–child relationship. Relevance to clinical practice A relation-focused approach to psychosocial support group development that allows mother–child mutual influences on each other's coping to be addressed bilaterally is suggested. Journal of clinical nursing 8 September 2022

Long term risk of distant metastasis in women with non‐metastatic breast cancer and survival after metastasis detection: a population‐based linked health records study
Distant metastases (DM) risk declines with time from diagnosis of non‐metastatic breast cancer, and the annual risk of dying from breast cancer declines with time from initial DM detection. These findings can be used to inform patients at follow‐up about changes in risk over time since diagnosis and for planning health services. MJA 5 September 2022

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Risk

Positive association between body height and breast cancer prevalence: a retrospective study with 135,741 women in Germany
The results of this study suggest that greater body height in women is significantly related to an increased breast cancer risk. Breast cancer research and treatment 10 September 2022

Postmenopausal overweight and breast cancer risk; results from the KARMA cohort
Overweight and obesity are associated with an increased risk of developing breast cancer, specifically ER+, low-grade, and for obesity, node-positive, high-risk breast cancer indicating a further need for risk communication and preventive programs. Breast cancer research and treatment 30 August 2022

Risk of breast cancer with HRT depends on therapy type and duration
The study showed that about one in three women had taken HRT at some stage. Most (70%) had taken combined oestrogen and progestogen. Fewer (30%) had taken oestrogen-only, which is suitable only for women who have had a hysterectomy. The study showed oestrogen-only HRT increased breast cancer risk only marginally and this extra risk disappeared after treatment stopped. BMJ 8 March 2022

Evidence from a BreastScreen cohort does not support a longer inter-screen interval in women who have no conventional risk factors for breast cancer
Highlights

  • 40.9% of screen-detected breast cancers occurred in women with no risk factors.
  • Cancer detection rate was 50/10,000 in screens with no risk factors.
  • Cancer size and nodal status were no more favourable in screens with no risk factors.
  • Interval cancer rate was lowest in screens with no risk factors nor dense breasts.
  • These findings may not justify less frequent screening in women with no risk factors.

The breast 29 January 2022

Gut metabolites and breast cancer: The continuum of dysbiosis, breast cancer risk, and potential breast cancer therapy
This review was designed to draw a comprehensive assessment and summary of recent research assessing the anticancer activity of the metabolites (produced by the gut microbiota) specifically against breast cancer. Despite the promising evidence supporting the anticancer action of gut metabolites on different cancer types, the molecular mechanisms of action of this activity are not well established, especially against breast cancer and warrant further investigation. International journal of molecular sciences 22 August 2022

Use of hormone replacement therapy and risk of breast cancer: nested case-control studies using the QResearch and CPRD databases
This study has produced new generalisable estimates of the increased risks of breast cancer associated with use of different hormone replacement preparations in the UK. The levels of risks varied between types of HRT, with higher risks for combined treatments and for longer duration of use. BMJ 17 September 2020

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Treatment

Pembrolizumab plus chemotherapy in advanced triple-negative breast cancer
Among patients with advanced triple-negative breast cancer whose tumors expressed PD-L1 with a CPS of 10 or more, the addition of pembrolizumab to chemotherapy resulted in significantly longer overall survival than chemotherapy alone. NEJM 21 July 2022

Survival outcomes for breast conserving surgery versus mastectomy among elderly women with breast cancer
For elderly breast cancer patients, BCS and mastectomy appeared to be comparable in terms of OS after being matched by clinicopathologic features. While our findings suggested that there was statistically survival benefit of BCS in some subsets of patients, including radiotherapy, chemotherapy, and 80–84 year-old subgroups, these results were likely to be related to selection bias and should be interpreted with caution. Thus, for this elderly patient population, BCS should be considered as an equivalent and less aggressive alternative to mastectomy. Breast cancer research and treatment 7 September 2022

Breast cancer treatment: A review
Breast cancer consists of 3 major tumor subtypes categorized according to estrogen or progesterone receptor expression and ERBB2 gene amplification. The 3 subtypes have distinct risk profiles and treatment strategies. Optimal therapy for each patient depends on tumor subtype, anatomic cancer stage, and patient preferences. JAMA 22 January 2019

Relapse rates and disease-specific mortality following procedures for fertility preservation at time of breast cancer diagnosis
Findings of this study support the safety of fertility preservation in women with breast cancer, which is highly relevant for reproductive counseling of women with breast cancer diagnosed at a young age. JAMA 25 August 2022

Margin status and survival outcomes after breast cancer conservation surgery: prospectively registered systematic review and meta-analysis
Involved or close pathological margins after breast conserving surgery for early stage, invasive breast cancer are associated with increased distant recurrence and local recurrence. Surgeons should aim to achieve a minimum clear margin of at least 1 mm. On the basis of current evidence, international guidelines should be revised. BMJ 21 September 2022

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E-Books

This is just a sample of the e-books the library subscribes to – you will need your library login

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Journals

This is just a sample of the journals the library subscribes to – you will need your library login

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Previous Awareness Weeks

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