Regular. Strenuous. Exercise. Memorize these three words. Live these three words. And abandon all thoughts of a fitness routine that is easy, moderate, or periodic.

Brisk walking, golf, and volleyball are considered moderate forms of exercise. Swimming laps, aerobics, and running are considered strenuous. And these are the activities we should be taking part in -- for the rest of our lives -- if we really truly wish to prevent breast cancer.

A new study, published in the February 26 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine, shows women with a long-term history of engaging in strenuous exercise for more than five hours per week were 20 percent less likely to develop invasive breast cancer and 31 percent less likely to develop in situ breast cancer than those logging less than 30 minutes of strenuous exercise per week.

It seems strenuous exercise most affects estrogen-receptor negative breast cancer. But clearly, everyone can benefit from vigorous fitness training -- the American Cancer Society recommends moderate to strenuous exercise five days per week for at least 30 minutes each day -- and this is exactly why I am headed out for a run. Today!

Breast cancer drug tamoxifen, designed to cut recurrence in women with estrogen-receptor positive disease, has been shown to continue working long after women stop taking the drug. And two studies suggest it might also offer long-term protection for healthy women with high risk of developing breast cancer.

One such study found the drug decreases risk of hormone-sensitive breast cancer by 39 percent over 20 years. Another shows a 34 percent decrease for up to eight years after the therapy concludes.

Published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, one study -- the International Breast Cancer Intervention Study, or IBIS -- looked at 7,145 women at high risk of breast cancer. And for the first time, clear evidence has surfaced in support of the merits of tamoxifen after the completion of treatment.

IBIS study participants took either a daily dose of tamoxifen or a placebo for five years. At the eight-year mark, 87 women who took the actual drug were diagnosed with estrogen-receptor positive breast cancer. And 129 women in the placebo group were diagnosed with the same disease.

In the second study, researchers from the Royal Marsden Hospital in London investigated 20-year data on 2,471 healthy women at high risk of breast cancer who took tamoxifen for six or seven years. Similar results were found.

Despite the benefits of tamoxifen as a preventative treatment, the drug is not currently approved for this use in the UK, where breast cancer is the most common form of female cancer.

A study appearing in the Journal of Clinical Oncology reveals there may be something out there that can extend the lives of patients with recurrent prostate cancer.

This something is a new class of anti-cancer targeted drugs that scientists at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles say are quite promising, despite their ineffectiveness in some prostate cancer patients with no previous chemotherapy treatment.

Pertuzumab, a molecular targeted compound that has been used successfully in ovarian cancer patients, has been shown to block the human epidermal growth factor receptor family by binding to and inhibiting the function of HER2 receptors. They essentially block a key pathway that leads to cancer growth. And this blockage can possibly offer a better, longer life for recurrent prostate cancer patients whose diseases no longer respond to traditional chemotherapy.

Pertuzumab, marketed under the brand name Omnitarg by Roche and Genentech, is just one of many targeted cancer therapies that give researchers hope that cancer may one day be a lifetime disease that can be skillfully managed.

According to the results of an international study, postmenopausal women who have taken tamoxifen for early stage estrogen-receptor positive breast cancer for two to three years might increase their chances of survival by switching to newer breast cancer drugs called aromatase inhibitors.

Study researchers found this drug switch-up reduced the number of events linked to poor survival by 32 percent -- although no difference has been found in overall survival at this early point in the trial.

"These findings provide some limited evidence to advise all women being administered tamoxifen to switch, even though this approach is not devoid of potentially serious side effects," say experts at the National Cancer Institute.

Side effects appear to be minimal, however, and the up side of treatment with aromatase inhibitors is the fact that they don't seem to carry the risk of death from other causes like with tamoxifen, which can cause stroke or endometrial cancer.

This study is expected to be published in the March 15 issue of the journal Cancer.

It's an unsettling journey -- the pursuit of the five-year cancer survival mark. Some say each year of cancer survival makes the future more of a sure thing. And so surviving five years -- the traditional landmark of real remission -- is a big accomplishment. But then there's the perspective of numbers that for me say I have a 93 percent chance of surviving breast cancer for five years. After that, though, there's no telling what will happen. So I am eagerly awaiting the moment when I cross the five-year finish line as I anxiously realize this very same moment may also signal a more dismal outlook.

The paradox hit me straight in the face yesterday as I was waiting for my radiation oncologist to give me another six-month all clear announcement. I was reading the January/February 2007 issue of Coping magazine while I waited. And as I flipped through the pages, I landed right at these words:

Studies show that half of all breast cancer recurrences occur after completion of five years of standard tamoxifen therapy. Additionally, a third of women with estrogen receptor-positive early breast cancer experience a recurrence, and more of half of these recurrences occur more than five years after surgery.

Now this doesn't apply directly to me. My breast cancer was estrogen receptor-negative which makes me a non-candidate for tamoxifen. And this is what scares me. My tumor was aggressive and while my treatment was also aggressive, I don't get the extra five-year protection from hormone therapy. If women taking this drug can have recurrences after completing the therapy, I wonder what's in store for me having not had it.

Maybe I'm making comparisons that don't amount to any real conclusions. Perhaps my type of disease allows for a more secure future. Or perhaps it places me on shaky ground. I don't know for sure. And I don't think I'll dive any deeper into research than I already have. Instead, I will live for today -- while enjoying the announcement my oncologist shared with me yesterday. All clear!

Oncotype DX is a diagnostic test that quantifies the likelihood of disease recurrence in women with early stage, node negative breast cancer. With the information provided by the test it may be possible for doctors and patients to make more informed decisions about breast cancer treatment options.

Oncotype DX analyzes a specific set of genes within a tumor to determine a recurrence score. The recurrence score is a number between 0 and 100 that corresponds to the likelihood that a recurrence with happen within 10 years of initial diagnosis.

Results presented at the 2006 annual San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium (SABCS) stated that the Oncotype DX test can more accurately predict estrogen receptor (ER) status than the two other commonly used tests, immunohistochemistry and ligand binding.

Another Oncotype DX study presented at the SABCS said that the test could predict the response to Tamoxifen by the levels of estrogen expression.

The researchers concluded that ER and PR expression, as measured using the Oncotype DX test, provide different pieces of information about prognosis and likely response to Tamoxifen among patients with node-negative breast cancer.

Tamoxifen has been used successfully for over 20 years. The researchers know that over time Tamoxifen can lose its effectiveness. Many women diagnosed with Stage IV breast cancer that have tumors that are estrogen-receptor positive can be put on Tamoxifen to control the disease. After some time the patient becomes resistant to Tamoxifen and has to be switched to another drug.

A molecule, called disulfide benzamide or DIBA, could provide a way to overcome that resistance and restore the effectiveness of Tamoxifen. Findings are published in the December issue of Cancer Cell that show how mice engineered to develop Tamoxifen resistant tumors and human breast cancer cells in the lab were given the molecule. In both cases the tumor growth slowed.

William Farrar, head of the Cancer Stem Cell Section of the National Cancer Institute's Center for Cancer Research and the studies lead author, says "DIBA is what is known as a lead compound, which means it merely opens the door to suitable drugs." He also says that "DIBA itself is probably not appropriate for humans, because of solubility problems". The team plans to try and develop another compound fashioned after the properties of DIBA and hopeful have this be able to be administered orally.

One important aspect of the research was that it focused only on an acquired resistance to Tamoxifen over time. It did not study why some estrogen positive tumors initially are resistant to the drug.

A not-so-new tumor-cell biomarker has been newly unveiled by researchers. And it just might predict how well women will fare after they've been diagnosed with breast cancer and how to best treat each cancer.

When expression of the marker -- called p27 -- is low, especially among women with hormone-receptor-positive tumors, prognosis is typically poor.

P27 was first discovered more than a decade ago but has not been useful for prognostic purposes until now. Previous studies on the marker failed to deliver all patients the same treatment -- so researchers could never determine if outcomes were due to p27 or treatment. But a recent study -- published in the December 6 issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute -- followed the same patients receiving the same treatment for newly diagnosed, hormone-receptor-positive, moderate-risk breast cancer.

The new study found women with tumors high in p27 expression had a five-year survival rate of 91 percent. Women with a low expression had a five-year survival rate of 85 percent.

No association was found between p27 expression and survival among women with hormone-receptor-negative tumors.

The next step in the study of this potentially important marker is to better define how women will benefit from this information.

Postmenopausal women with HER2 positive breast cancer that also have hormone receptor positive disease can benefit significantly when treatment involves adding Herceptin to the drug Arimidex. Combining these two drugs can lengthen the time women with advanced breast cancer live without their disease progressing.

The full findings were released on Monday at the European Society for Medical Oncology Congress in Istanbul. Roche Pharmaceuticals had announced back in May that Herceptin plus Arimidex combination had produced good results.

"The results are very positive" said Dr. Bella Kaufman of Israel's Chaim Sheba Medical Center who led the research. "In breast cancer, there are not many trials that show double progression-free survival."

When I first looked at my pathology report more than 18 months ago, it made little sense. Terms like Bloom Richardson Score and margins and Her2Neu were as foreign to me as the breast cancer that somehow invaded my body. So I read it over and over again and was eventually able to identify the basic meaning hidden within the four pages that detailed my disease. As it turned out, this report was my map. It led me in various directions for various treatments. It contained some roadblocks. It was sometimes confusing. And sometimes I got lost. There were some good and not-so-good stops along the way. And in the end, I reached my final destination -- in the land survival. And this is where I hope to stay. For a long time.

My map is not necessary anymore -- although I still look back at it. I've found that it makes more sense now that time has passed. I can interpret it more objectively, with more perspective and less emotion and fear. I am still learning about the disease that was removed from my breast. And I am realizing there was a lot I never really knew -- like these seven subjects -- when breast cancer was new and fresh and debilitating.

I clearly remember reading a pamphlet about a test that might determine with pretty good accuracy whether or not I would benefit from chemotherapy for breast cancer. This was more than a year ago and I hoped, prayed, wished upon a star that I would be a candidate for this test -- and that the result would reveal that I did not need the toxic chemotherapy that I feared with every fiber of my being. But I did not qualify for this test because it's only effective for tumors that are estrogen receptor positive -- and I am negative. So I received chemotherapy and while I've survived it, there still remains an important issue -- did I need it?