Breast Cancer Research Highlights

New Screening Strategies May Help Women With Genetic Risks

A CARRIER Study

“This study is an example of how simulation modeling can shed important insight on breast cancer prevention by providing estimates of the benefits and harms associated with screening, particularly for the use of MRI to screen women with a higher risk for developing breast cancer due to ATM, CHEK2, and PALB2 variants.”—Jennifer Yeh, PhD, ACS grantee Boston Children's Hospital 

See the highlight about Dr. Yeh's published study.

Inflammatory Breast Cancer—Improving Symptom Awareness

“In the last 2 years, my family experienced cancer first hand, and boy has that grounded me. (She was diagnosed with a rare cancer, and her mother was diagnosed with inflammatory breast cancer (IBC) even though none of the known risk factors applied to her.) I felt this was important for me to share publicly, as I consider American Cancer Society extended family.

“So to all who are listening, I’ll say, ‘cancer—or for that matter, any ailment—is personal’. I still have moments when it hits me that despite my work in this area, numerous talks I’ve given, and access to care on rare cancer, a rare cancer went undetected in my family, and another rare cancer was barely detected on time." —Gayanthri R. Devi, PhD, Duke University School of Medicine

Hear the podcast about Dr. Devi's research.

New Way to Calculate Breast Cancer Risk May Affect Screening Plans

A CARRIER Study

“Ultimately, the goal is to put together everything we know about what increases and decreases the risk for developing breast cancer and for surviving it. That ‘everything’ would include genetics, reproductive history, geographic location, socioeconomic factors, exposures to infections and pollutants, medical history, smoking and drinking history, diet, and more. When we can account for all of these factors together, we’ll be able to empower women with personalized, specific strategies to reduce their own risk of getting or dying from cancer.”—Lauren Teras, PhD

See the highlight about Dr. Teras' published study.

3D Mini Breast Tumors May Help ID New Cancer Treatments

“The ability to grow patient tumor cells in a dish allows us to accelerate personalized medicine. We can now test a large number of drugs on diverse patient tumors and use genomic analysis to learn which differences in gene expression between patients’ tumors are associated with the response to each drug.”—Katherine Varley, PhD

See the highlight about Dr. Varley's published study.

Excess Weight Before 50 Shortens Life with Breast Cancer After 50

“Body weight plays an important role in the development, treatment, and survival of breast cancer. While this study helps us better understand the role body weight before a diagnosis has on survival after a diagnosis of breast cancer, it is difficult to disentangle the multifactorial role of body weight.”  –Mia Gaudet, PhD

See the highlight about Dr. Gaudet's published study.

Community Health Centers Aren't Meeting Mammography's Needs

“It is necessary for all health centers to address racial disparities in care and to atone for the decades of medical and public health mistreatment of Black persons, including the consequences of historical redlining. We have a responsibility as medical and public health professionals to reckon with systemic racism, and our own privileges, when developing health promotion and intervention activities.”—Jessica Star, MA, MPH

See the highlight about Jessica Star's published study.