New innovations in breast cancer research

Dr. Tak Mak might be Canada's internationally recognized face of breast-cancer research and director of the Campbell Family Institute at Toronto's Princess Margaret Hospital. But ask him about new trends in oncology and he sounds like a kid with his first car. "Breast cancer ... is like a basket of fruit," he says from Las Vegas, taking a few minutes out from sessions at a medical conference. "Yes, yes! A bowl of fruit! You have some sort of apples. You have pineapples, you have oranges, you have bananas. For a long time, we used therapies and drugs and treated all the fruit the same. That was based on 30 years of work and it helped a lot. "But what we realized was that there are four or five kinds of fruit in the basket, and they're all

Posted in Breast health on 11/22/2008 - 0 Comments

Young breast cancer

"Lucky" isn't a word many would apply to Claudine Brunelle. But it's one she uses a lot, even as she recounts her horrifying tale: her mother's death of breast cancer in August 2007; her diagnosis last November as a carrier of her mother's aggressive BRCA-1 breast-cancer gene mutation; and the removal of her ovaries, then her breasts this past spring. Brunelle, 38, didn't have cancer. But she had a 90-per-cent chance of developing breast cancer and a 25-per-cent risk of ovarian cancer. "I took charge. I acted," says Brunelle, of Gatineau, Que. "It's about having control. It's a hard road to take, but I'm lucky to have that much control over my health." Positive as Brunelle's outlook is, the statistics suggest a different

Posted in Breast health on 11/22/2008 - 0 Comments

The face of breast cancer

At Joyce Snarr’s home in suburban Ottawa, the phone rings. She’s been waiting for the call, but even so, the retired elementary teacher hesitates before answering. The news, as she expected, is not good. A mammogram screening and biopsy on her right breast show a small cancerous tumour. The surgeon is matter-of-fact: As breast cancer goes, it’s the one to have.

Posted in Breast health on 11/22/2008 - 0 Comments