Examining the lymph cells in lymph nodes may present a better way to predict if breast cancer has spread and will be likely to recur.
Researchers at Stanford University School of Medicine found that women with breast cancer whose lymph nodes had a normal immune cell balance had an 85 to 90 percent chance of being disease-free after five years. The group with an "unfavorable" immune profile had less than a 15 percent chance. The findings are published in the current issue of the journal Public Library of Science-Medicine.
The researchers hope to develop a simple test that could help determine which women could benefit from more aggressive therapy, and which could be spared undergoing costly and toxic treatments unnecessarily.
Full text article available here.
1. I am not a Journalist, I am an Electrical Engineer by training. I hope you can overlook any gramatical faults of this post long enough to hear the message. My worry is if all Cancer stories told via the Media were like the amazing story of Lance Armstrong, you may believe that Cancer is curable, that survivability rates were much higher than the stark reality. Paige is not going to survive.
My name is Chris, and Paige is my daughter. Paige has battled Cancer now for 31 months. She will not reach her 7th birthday. Paige's story is not all that uncommon in our families experience. Paige has lost the Cancer fight.
Research for Paige's type of Cancer ( Rhabdomyosarcoma ) is being lead by Dr. Frederick Barr [ http://www.med.upenn.edu/camb/faculty/cgc/barr.html.
Please consider donating to Dr. Barr's research efforts to fight this rare but life limiting disease.
Further information regarding Paige and her battle are available at [http://poodlepaigee.blogspot.com].
A Blog our family follows is [http://cancerbaby.typepad.com/]. Although this is not the Blog of a Child, the story is poignant and satirical, it is the real story of this Woman's battle with Cancer.
Posted at 1:07PM on Sep 8th 2005 by Chris