Clinical Breast Cancer

BACKGROUND: Nail changes are among the most common dermatological adverse events in paclitaxel-receiving patients. Although effective, low-temperature prophylactic cryotherapy is discomforting and a potential cause of side effects, resulting in low patients' adherence. PATIENTS AND METHODS: A phase II single-arm study evaluating mild cryotherapy for the reduction of 12-week, grade 2 nail toxicity was conducted on 67 taxane-naïve breast cancer patients (age 18-74 years) undergoing weekly adjuvant chemotherapy with paclitaxel...

BACKGROUND: PALB2 plays a crucial role in genome stability and the DNA repair process, and its mutation is associated with a moderate to high risk of breast cancer. However, the status and prognostic role of PALB2 expression in breast cancer are still unclear. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The expression level of PALB2 mRNA was evaluated by using quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction in core biopsy samples from 563 primary breast cancer tissues. RESULTS: In the entire cohort, low expression of PALB2 mRNA was significantly associated with poor survival (low vs...

BACKGROUND: Few studies have focused on converting ER-low-positive and HER2-low status following neoadjuvant therapy (NAT). We aimed to assess the evolution in ER and HER2 status after NAT in breast cancer patients. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Our study included 481 patients with residual invasive breast cancer after NAT. ER and HER2 status were assessed in the primary tumor and residual disease, and associations between ER and HER2 conversion and clinicopathological factors were explored...

BACKGROUND: Breast cancer surgery is associated with upper-body morbidities that may last several years postsurgery. Research has not determined if the type of surgery leads to differential effects on shoulder function, activity levels, and QoL during the early rehabilitation period. The main objective of this study is to examine changes in shoulder function, health, and fitness outcomes from the day before to surgery to 6 months postsurgery. PATIENTS AND METHODS: We recruited breast cancer patients (N = 70) scheduled to receive breast cancer surgery at Severance Hospital in Seoul to participate in this prospective study...

Triple-negative breast cancer is a sub-type of clinically and molecularly heterogeneous malignant disease with a worse prognosis and earlier recurrence than HER2-amplified or hormone-receptor positive breast cancer. Because of the lack of personalized therapy, genetic information is essential to early diagnosing, identifying the high risk of recurrence, guiding therapeutic management, and monitoring treatment efficiency. Circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) is a novel noninvasive, timely, and tumor specified biomarker that reliably reflects the comprehensive tumor genetic profiles...

BACKGROUND: Single center studies have shown that during the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, many patients had surgical procedures postponed or modified. We studied how the pandemic affected the clinical outcomes of breast cancer patients who underwent mastectomies in 2020. METHODS: Using the American College of Surgeons (ACS) National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (NSQIP) database, we compared clinical variables of 31,123 and 28,680 breast cancer patients who underwent a mastectomy in 2019 and 2020, respectively...

BACKGROUND: Radiotherapy (RT) is an important component of breast cancer management but is underutilized due to barriers such as the lack of proper education. YouTube is commonly used for obtaining health information, yet the quality of information has been a previous concern. This study systematically evaluates the characteristics of educational YouTube videos on RT for breast cancer. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A total of 200 YouTube videos were identified by recording the top 50 videos of 4 searches...

INTRODUCTION: With breast cancer as one of the frequent causes of cancer mortality today, the importance of ultrasound in its early detection has been apparent. It has been a valuable addition to the surgeon's diagnostic skills, contributing a vital role in clinical practice. We set out to determine the accuracy and value of breast ultrasound for primary imaging in women presenting with a clinically palpable mass in our outpatient clinic. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This is a retrospective cross-sectional study of a point-of-care breast ultrasound among patients who consulted at the University of the Philippines-Philippine General Hospital (UP-PGH) Breast Care Clinic for a palpable breast mass without prior histopathologic diagnosis...

INTRODUCTION/BACKGROUND: To investigate the differences in pathological response and survival outcomes between dose-dense and conventional-interval neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC) in patients with triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC). PATIENTS AND METHODS: Patients with TNBC who received NAC including epirubicin plus cyclophosphamide followed by weekly paclitaxel were included. A total of 494 patients were divided into either the dose-dense anthracycline (ddEC-wP) group or conventional interval anthracycline (EC-wP) group...

INTRODUCTION/BACKGROUND: This study aimed to construct a nomogram to provide prognostic references for patients with locally advanced breast cancer (LABC) to receive immediate breast reconstruction (IBR). MATERIALS AND METHODS: All data were obtained from the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) database. Univariate Cox regression, least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) and best subset regression (BSR), separately followed by backward stepwise multivariable Cox, were used to construct the nomogram...

BACKGROUND: This study aims to capture clinical and surgical practice patterns of patients with deleterious mutations in partner and localizer of BRCA2 (PALB2), checkpoint kinase 2 (CHEK2) and ataxia telangiesctasia mutated (ATM) genes. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This study is a retrospective chart review of patients with PALB2, CHEK2 or ATM mutations. Patient demographics, testing indications, management decisions, and surveillance strategies were recorded. RESULTS: Sixty-two patients were found to have deleterious mutations: 14 (23%) with a PALB2 mutation, 30 (48%) with a CHEK2 mutation, and 18 (29%) patients with an ATM mutation...

BACKGROUND: Chromobox proteins are canonical components of the Polycomb group family and play pivotal roles in several cancers. However, little is known about the function, prognostic value and drug sensitivity of CBX family members in breast cancer. METHODS: In this study we investigated the expression, prognosis value and drug sensitivity of CBX family in breast cancer using the ONCOMINE, GEPIA, Human Protein Atlas and Kaplan-Meier Plotter databases, etc. and preliminary verified the expression of CBX family in breast cancer cell lines by RT-qPCR...

BACKGROUND: Breast cancer with fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) group 2 pattern (HER2 <4 and HER2/CEP17 ratio ≥2, a subset of monosomy CEP17) was historically considered HER2-positive, but mostly HER2-negative according to updated 2018 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO)/College of American Pathologists (CAP) guidelines unless 3+ by immunohistochemistry (IHC). Therapeutic relevance of this group remained elusive, therefore we assessed if repeat IHC and FISH can assist final HER2 classification...

INTRODUCTION: Women with neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1) have up to a 5-fold increased risk for breast cancer before age 50 and a 3.5-fold increased risk of breast cancer overall. The purpose of our study was to assess breast cancer screening utilization and outcomes in this population. PATIENTS AND METHODS: This IRB approved HIPAA compliant study retrospectively assessed consecutive NF1 patients (January 2012-December 2021) with recorded clinical visits and/or breast imaging...

BACKGROUND: Currently, the standard tracing method is to use blue dyes and radioisotope as the tracer for sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB). However, there are variations in the choice of tracer in different countries and regions. Some new tracers are also gradually applied in clinical practice, but there is still a lack of long-term follow-up data to confirm their clinical application value. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Clinicopathological and postoperative treatment follow-up data were collected from patients with early-stage cTis-2N0M0 breast cancer who underwent SLNB using a dual-tracer method of ICG combined with MB...

INTRODUCTION: Breast cancer (BC) remains one of the biggest threats to women's health. Protocadherin gene Protocadherin Alpha 1 (PCDHA1) is abnormally highly expressed in breast cancer tissues. However, the biological role of PCDHA1 in breast cancer has not been fully elucidated and the relationship with the immune microenvironment needs to be further studied. MATERIALS AND METHODS: TCGA-BRCA gene expression profiles were used to characterize PCDHA1. Kaplan-Meier method was used to estimate PCDHA1 prognosis potential...

BACKGROUND: This study was to investigate the functional role and mechanism of receptor activator of nuclear factor-kappa B ligand (RANKL) associated autophagy and chemoresistance in breast cancer. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Cell Counting Kit-8 (CCK-8) assay was used to detect the cell viability. Real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was used for determining the relative mRNA levels of key genes and protein expression was assessed by Western blotting. Immunofluorescence was performed to evaluate the changes in the autophagy flux...

BACKGROUND: Previous studies have shown an important role of interleukin 6 (IL-6) in the progression and metastasis of breast cancer. The present 2-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) study aimed to identify the genetic causal link between IL-6 and breast cancer. MATERIAL AND METHODS: IL-6-signaling and its negative regulator soluble IL-6 receptor (sIL-6R) genetic instruments were chosen from 2 large-scale genome-wide association studies (GWAS) of 204,402 and 3,301 European individuals, respectively...

PURPOSE: Early-stage human epidermal growth factor receptor 2-positive (HER2-positive) breast cancers (BCs) are routinely treated with intense perioperative chemotherapy combined with HER2-targeted agents. There is thus an unmet need for knowledge about treatment patterns and outcomes among patients 70 years of age or older, as this is an under-represented subset of patients in large clinical trials. METHODS: We used a deidentified cohort derived from a nationwide electronic health record database to conduct a retrospective cohort study of patients with HER2-positive BCs...

INTRODUCTION: We compared the rates of long-term adjuvant endocrine therapy (AET) adherence after various radiation therapy (RT) modalities among patients with early stage breast cancer. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Medical records from patients with stage 0, I, or IIA (tumors ≤3 cm), hormone receptor (HR) positive breast cancer that received adjuvant radiation therapy (RT) from 2013 to 2015 at a single institution were retrospectively reviewed. All patients received breast conserving surgery (BCS) followed by adjuvant RT via one of the following modalities: whole breast radiotherapy (WBI), partial breast irradiation (PBI) with either external beam radiation therapy (EBRT) or fractionated intracavitary high-dose rate (HDR) brachytherapy, or single fraction HDR-brachytherapy intraoperative-radiation therapy (IORT)...