!!! More interesting abstracts from Cancer conference - AACR
 

Hello again -
Maybe someone else has an easier way to view these abstracts, but I found the easiest way was to go to the AACR website and do the following:

To view the abstracts, go to http://www.abstractsonline.com/viewe...582CE7A0988%7D

and you can search by the number at the beginning of the study title. Just put the number in the search box and click “search.”

(The titles below will not connect to the abstract!) These are all by people I talked to and visited their poster. Wish I could impart how enthused they were about their findings and how they are carrying on from this point. At least you get the idea of how many directions the research is taking. You can search the AACR site by Session subjects as well.

VERY interesting study involving a hormone given to beef:
#2685 Zeranol (Z) increases aromatase mRNA expression in human normal breast pre-adipocytes (HNBPADs)

New drug from Genentech – an mTOR inhibitor, will begin phase 1 study:
#2707 Design and synthesis of dual PI3K/mTor inhibitors

A work with new antibody targets:
#1235 EPI0030, a humanized anti-VEGF rabbit monoclonal antibody, exhibits potent activity in preclinical models

Interesting investigation on bC brain metastases:
#4962 Breast cancer metastasis to the brain: effect of cyclophosphamide in a rat model

Novel targets and agents for imaging cancer:
#5014
89Zr-ranibizumab VEGF microPET imaging during sunitinib treatment visualizes changes with low tracer uptake in the center of the tumor and high uptake at the rim with a rebound tumor uptake after end of treatment.

Immune modulation and monitoring:

#5085 Maitake beta-glucan promotes neutrophil recovery from taxol induced chemotoxicity

Question: A cancer survival organization associated with my hospital/clinic recommended I do genetic testing (BRCA1 and BRCA2). I was thinking this makes sense only in terms of potential threat of breast cancer for other family members (e.g. nieces). The following abstract seems to say more. Does that mean the testing would reflect risk for me as well?

Melanie (So much to learn!)

Here is the abstract:

Abstract Number:

3035
Session Title:

Candidate Risk Genes: Melanoma, Hereditary Cancer Syndromes, and Rare and Childhood Cancers
Presentation Title:

BRCA2 mutation status affects long term breast cancer specific survival
Presentation Start/End Time:

Tuesday, Apr 21, 2009, 8:00 AM -12:00 PM
Location:

Hall B-F, Poster Section 4
Poster Section:

4
Poster Board Number:

4
Author Block:

Tuomas Heikkinen, Kristiina Aittomäki, Carl Blomqvist, Heli Nevanlinna. Helsinki University Central Hospital, Helsinki, Finland
Mutations in the two high penetrance breast cancer predisposing genes, BRCA1 and BRCA2 are estimated to cause approximately 15% of familial predisposition to breast cancer. BRCA1 mutations confer approximately 57% average risk of developing breast cancer and 40% risk of ovarian cancer by the age of 70 years, and BRCA2 mutations 49% risk of breast cancer and 18% risk for ovarian cancer. Carriers of inactivating germline mutations in these genes develop tumors of particular phenotypes, and their age of onset of the disease is also considerably lower than among other breast cancer patients. However, the prognostic effects of these mutations have been unclear. We investigated the long term survival among BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutation carriers by comparing their outcome to survival of other breast cancer patients (n=2178). We found a significantly worse 10 year breast cancer specific survival among BRCA2 mutation carriers in univariate Cox’s regression analyses (HR 2.34, 95% CI 1.50-3.66, p=0.002, n=68), but no such significant effect of BRCA1 mutation on prognosis (HR 1.67, 95% CI 0.99-2.82, p=0.0546, n=67). BRCA2 mutation associated strongly with negative HER2 status of the tumors and the effect of BRCA2 mutation on survival was even stronger among patients showing no HER2 over expression/amplification (HR 3.75, 95% CI 2.18-6.45, p<0.0001, n=38), a group that in general has a more favorable prognosis. Cumulative breast cancer specific survival rates at 10 years for sporadic, familial, BRCA1 carrier and BRCA2 carrier patients were 83.8%, 84.1%, 76.0% and 63.7% respectively, and when stratified by negative HER2 status 84.8%, 86.7%, 82.0% and 55.3% respectively. Carrying a BRCA2 mutation was also an independent prognostic marker in multivariate analyses along with conventional prognostic factors. The prognostic effect of BRCA2 mutation became noticeable mainly after five years of follow-up and our results suggest a more significant impact of BRCA2 mutation on long term breast cancer survival than previously found.