The Making Memories Breast Cancer Foundation's mission is to grant wishes, including memory-making events, for metastatic breast cancer patients, while continuing to support, educate and increase resource awareness.

One of the Making Memories fundraisers is Brides Against Breast Cancer. It can give brides-to-be, an opportunity to find the wedding gown of their dreams (at an incredible savings) while making wishes and dreams come true. Click here if you wish to donate your gown.

The Drexelbrook Wedding and Banquet Facility is hosting Nationwide Tour of Gowns on October 10th and 11th. If you live near Drexel Hill, PA you can attend this event and browse over 40 racks of exquisite, named brand and designer wedding gowns costing from $89 to $799.

Event Details:

Drexelbrook Wedding & Banquet Facility. Drexelbrook Drive & Valley road

Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania 19026

Wednesday, October 10th, 10am - 8pm

Thursday, October 11th, 10am - 8pm

Contact: mminfo@makingmemories.org

A study published in the journal Cancer says that improvements in the treatment of metastatic breast cancer are making a difference and patients are living longer with the disease.

Researchers in Canada conducted a study evaluating 2,000 women diagnosed with advanced breast cancer. The time periods in the study were broken up into four groups dating from 1991 until 2001. The researchers concluded that one year survival improved from 55 percent to 71 percent and two year survival improved from 33 percent to 45 percent.

The introduction of new chemotherapy drugs, new approaches to hormonal therapy, and new targeted therapy have been introduced over the period of time evaluated in the study.

Tykerb (lapatinib) may be effective at shrinking breast cancer tumors in the brain, researchers say. This drug is called a targeted therapy because it can kill cancer cells and leave normal cells alone. Tykerb targets HER2 and EGFR, two proteins that function abnormally in breast cancer cells.

A study was conducted that included 241 breast cancer patients with brain metastasis that continued to progress after radiation treatment and Herceptin therapy.

The study concluded that nearly half of the patients, 46 percent, experienced at least a twenty percent reduction in the size the the brain tumors.

The researchers concluded "Tykerb has promise in the treatment of brain metastasis".

Axitinib is an agent that targets angiogenesis -- blood supply to a tumor. It disrupts blood vessels that grow and provide nutrients to cancer cells. Without the nutrients and oxygen supplied by blood vessels, cancer cells cannot grow or replicate.

Researchers conducted a trial to evaluate axitinib in the treatment of metastatic breast cancer. Patients were either given Taxotere or Taxotere plus axitinib. Anticancer responses were achieved in 40 percent of patients treated with the addition of axitinib to Taxotere, compared with only 23 percent of patients treated with Taxotere alone.

The researchers concluded -- that the addition of axitinib to Taxotere improves anticancer responses and delays cancer progression compared to Taxotere alone in the treatment of metastatic breast cancer.

At the 2007 meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, results were presented from a clinical trial that stated -- Continuous maintenance therapy may improve survival among patients with metastatic colorectal cancer.

Maintenance therapy is used when a patient's cancer is stable and not exhibiting signs of progression. Researchers want to find a way to improve survival, but they also want to find a program that is not too intense and will have limited side effects.

This brings us to the study that was done on 202 patients with metastatic colorectal cancer. The patients were split in two groups, one group received continuous maintenance chemotherapy with a drug called Eloxatin (oxaliplatin). The second group was only treated again with chemotherapy once their cancer had started to progress.

Melanoma that has spread to other areas of the body is a very difficult cancer to treat successfully. It usually does not respond well to chemotherapy. Sadly, those diagnosed with metastatic melanoma survive only about a year after diagnosis.

The combination of Taxol (paclitaxel) with carboplatin, added to an agent that prevents the growth of blood vessels called bevacizumab has been shown to significantly delay the spread of tumors in patients with advanced melanoma. A Phase II clinical trial showed that tumor growth was delayed by almost six months; typically these cancers begin to start spreading again in about eight weeks.

Dr. Domingo Perez, M.D., the lead author of the study says "The clinical benefit may seem small, but in the world of melanoma where there is very little progress, this is certainly a strong indication that the combination of chemotherapy with an antiangiogenic agent may be a valid treatment strategy for these patients."

Arsenic trioxide sold under the brand name Trisenox, is approved for patients with a rare leukemia named acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL).

APL is a form of acute myeloid leukemia, about 1,500 people are diagnosed every year with this rare disease. Standard treatment involves chemotherapy and a form of vitamin A -- alltrans retinoic acid. This therapy helps about 70-80 percent of patient gain long term-remissions. About 25 percent of patients do relapse and are no longer responsive to treatment.These patients often are treated with arsenic trioxide.

A study was sponsored by The National Cancer Institute to see if the addition of arsenic trioxide along with the standard therapy for first line treatment would prove better survival rates.

Join Living Beyond Breast Cancer (LBBC) for a free educational teleconference titled Medical and Quality-of-Life Updates from the 43rd Annual Meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology.

The teleconference will be held on Monday, June 11, 2007 at 12:00 p.m. - 1:30 p.m. (EDT). You can participate by using any telephone or by computer using Real Network Player or Windows Media Player. Register online at www.lbbc.com or call 610-645-4567.

This teleconference brings to you groundbreaking research presented at the largest annual conference of cancer professionals in the United States. Some topics discussed will be:

• Advances in surgical, hormonal and chemotherapy treatments
• Using diet and nutrition to improve quality of life
• Clinical trials measuring the long-term impact of treatment on health and well-being
• New information on how to treat and manage metastatic breast cancer

Following the speaker presentation there will be an interactive question and answer session.

Breast cancer drug Herceptin has been approved in Europe for use with hormonal therapy for postmenopausal patients with HER2 and hormone receptor positive metastatic disease.

Herceptin, made by Swiss drugmaker Roche Holding AG, is already approved in Europe for early and metastatic HER2-positive breast cancer.

This new approval is based on data from an international late stage clinical trial showing the combination of Herceptin with hormonal therapy doubled the median progression-free survival time.

Twenty to thirty percent of breast cancers over express a protein referred to as the human epidermal growth factor receptor, better known as HER2 over expression.

Herceptin is an agent that is targeted against the HER2 receptor and helps to slow or stop the spread of cancer cells that over express this protein. Unfortunately, some women that do have the over expression of HER2 on their breast cancer cells do not respond to treatment with Herceptin.

The Journal of the National Cancer Institute has published a report that says among breast cancer patients with HER2 over expressing cancer cells, those whose cells also express a receptor called p95HER2 have a poor anti-cancer response rate with Herceptin.

The study included forty seven women with metastatic breast cancer. All were treated with Herceptin. Nine of these patients also expressed the receptor p95HER2.

The results showed that only 11 percent of the women with the p95HER2 expression showed an anti-cancer response to Herceptin. Of the patients who did not express p95HER2 demonstrated a response of 51 percent. The report also showed that laboratory testing of cancer cells that do express p95HER2 demonstrated anti-cancer activity with a drug called Tykerb.

The researchers concluded that patients with HER2-over expressing breast cancer who also express p95HER2 appear to be more resistant to treatment with Herceptin and "may require alternative or additional anti-HER2–targeting strategies." Patients with HER2-over expressing breast cancer may wish to speak with their physician regarding their individual risks and benefits of participating in a clinical trial further evaluating biologic markers that may help predict responses to certain therapies.

It is not new to hear that soy and broccoli have been linked to lowering cancer rates, if they are a part of your daily diet. California researchers think they understand what the effect of these veggies have on the cancer cell.

The researchers are convinced that there is a biological mechanism behind the protective effect. It is explained in the article that a compound resulting from the digestion of cruciferous vegetables, and genistein, an isofavone in soy, reduce the two proteins needed for breast and ovarian cancer to spread.

Cancer cells can be drawn to metastasize by having high levels of a surface recepter on the cell. The organs in which the cancer spreads also secrete high levels of a different receptor that binds to the cancer cell's receptor. This attraction stimulates the invasive properties of cancer cells and acts like a homing device, drawing the cancer cells to organs like the liver or brain.

The study found that when cancer cells were treated with high levels of compounds found in broccoli and soy, the drawing mechanism to the organs was reduced by 80 percent compared to untreated cells.

Dr. Alan Kristal, associate head of the cancer prevention program at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center says "This is an entirely unique mechanism...Preventing the invasion and metastasis of cancer cells is crucial"

More studies are needed but the research suggests that this attraction can play a role in the development of more than 23 different types of cancer.

In the news there has been a lot of questioning whether or not it is wise for someone diagnosed with cancer, and needs therapy or treatments to control their cancer, should still work or carry on with their life the way it was before cancer entered into their lives.

Its a good question -- but all cancer survivors or patients must make this decision themselves and should not be judged either way. Treatments can be physically mild or debilitating and everywhere in between.

I know women who are walking in Elizabeth Edward's shoes and have metastatic breast cancer. These women that I know might not be blazing the campaign trail but they are still keepin-on- keepin-on with life like it was before their breast cancer returned. They still get up and go to work, do the laundry, feed their children, all the normal things that you and I do everyday. Not to say that days can't be really tough, emotionally and physically. But I see women who are living with the disease -- really living and not giving up any of their dreams.

I can't really speak for women with metastatic disease, I can only talk about what I see, because I am not walking in their shoes and don't completely understand what it is like living with recurrent breast cancer.

Recurrent breast cancer can mean being on some kind of cancer treatment for the rest of your life, it can mean long times of remission or no evidence of disease.

Can it mean Elizabeth Edwards being first lady with metastatic breast disease? I think so.

Elizabeth Edwards has been told the metastatic cancer found in her bones is considered stage four. And it's treatable. But not curable.

Tricky stuff -- all this cancer terminology -- and a little hard to fully comprehend.

I saw Sheryl Crow talking with Maria Shriver and Dr. Susan Love on Larry's King's CNN program the other night. Crow says her breast cancer was curable -- it was teeny tiny and had not spread and required a lumpectomy and radiation, but not chemotherapy. "I'm the walking poster child for early detection," she said. Her cancer was caught and treated swiftly. She is cured. Theoretically.

Can Crow's cancer still return? Yep.

We just aren't sure at the time of one cancer discovery if these deadly cells have drifted away from the main site and will later show up elsewhere, explained Dr. Love. All predictions would have Crow living a long life free of cancer. But they may have had Edwards in the same boat just two years ago when she was first diagnosed with breast cancer.

So now Edwards' cancer is not curable. It is treatable. And this is a bit easier to understand. Her cancer will never go away. But doctors can keep it at bay. And Love says they can even make it better. But there is no cure for what Edwards has. So she will live with cancer for the rest of her life.

I guess curable means: the cancer is gone and we hope it never comes back. And treatable means: the cancer is not gone and will never be gone but we will treat it for as long as we can.

I think I get it.

Elizabeth Edwards, wife of Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, has had many routine medical follow-ups since her 2004 breast cancer diagnosis. And all of them -- until just a few days ago -- resulted in what is generally termed a clean bill of health.

The term doesn't always come with a sense of relief for those of us surviving breast cancer -- or any cancer for that matter -- because it only really defines what our bodies are telling us at one specific moment. There are no magic blood tests, no special body scans, no conclusive ways of determining whether or not cancerous cells have gone astray and will one day surface again.

I asked my oncologist after my first six-month follow-up how he would know if my cancer returns. He told me it's really up to me to determine whether it comes back. It's up to me to get mammograms and ultrasounds and MRIs. It's up to me to report any symptoms and suspicions. It's up to me to track my general well-being so that it will be clear when something feels not-so-right. If I have a persistent cough or headaches that won't subside, my doctor will take action with X-rays and scans and tests. But as long as I feel fine and nothing troubling presents itself, then I remain in the clean-bill-of-health club.

Edwards no longer has a clean bill of health. But she is determined to use her newest diagnosis -- stage four metastatic cancer of the bones, considered treatable but not curable -- to work toward the best health she can acquire for as long as she can hold onto it. And that is about as good as any of us can do.

Tykerb has been approved by the FDA for use in conjunction with the chemotherapy drug Xeloda. Tykerb is a cancer medication that more precisely targets tumors without killing lots of healthy cells in the process.

Herceptin and Tykerb target a protein called HER-2/neu but work in different ways. Herceptin targets the outside of the HER2 protein and Tykerb works from the inside of the cell. This difference can give advanced breast cancer patients another drug to switch to if Herceptin stops working for them.

Glaxo said that Tykerb will be available in two weeks. The results of a study showed that Tykerb worked so well that the international study was stopped early and all the participants were offered the drug.

The FDA said it was too early to know if women taking Tykerb and Xeloda would live longer than those taking the latter drug alone.

Dr. Steven Galson, FDA drugs chief, said "Today's approval is a step forward in making new treatments available for patients who have progression of their breast cancer after treatment with some of the most effective breast cancer therapies available."