Research Worth Watching

This recent paper in the British Medical Journal on breast cancer risk in transgender people receiving hormone treatment sparked my interest because not only did it draw attention to a group of people all too often overlooked by cancer researchers but it showed us why...

Joan Lunden’s post on Instagram —#10yearchallenge —reminded me how important it is to educate women about breast density and how it may affect breast health. Basically, the breast is formed of milk ducts (usually collapsed if you are not breast feeding) that are...

The Annual San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium has been going on since 1977! From a one-day regional conference, the Symposium has grown to a five-day international meeting attended by advocates, clinicians, basic scientists and pharmaceutical companies from over 90...

The reading I’ve done over the past several weeks has reminded me yet again why it is critical that we go back and question our assumptions about cancer. Assumptions are rooted in the scientific process. Science is all about observing certain phenomena and then...

I was among the many who were shocked to learn that this spring the United States pushed Ecuador to drop a resolution in support of breastfeeding it had intended to introduce in Geneva for the United Nations-affiliated World Health Assembly. The benefits of...

One major problem with much of our cancer therapy is collateral damage. Not the side effects, such as nausea and vomiting or hair loss, which are typically transient but the long-term consequences of therapy, such as chemo brain and neuropathy.  Some of these...

Breast cancer becomes deadly when it metastasizes—spreads to other parts of the body. For decades, we’ve been focused on developing treatments that will keep early-stage breast cancer from recurring. Now, researchers are spending more time studying how and where...

The discussions and arguments about the use of hormones to get women through menopause were a prominent part of my early career. To help women understand the reasons for the debate, I wrote a book about menopause and hormones in 2003. Because I was questioning...

It is hard for me to believe that it has been almost two weeks since our 9th International Symposium! We first hosted this conference in 1999 and, while each year has been special, I think this year’s meeting, “Exploring the Human Breast: Employing New Technology,”...

To determine what type of breast cancer you have and how it should be treated, your tumor is tested to see if it has hormone receptors (ER and PR positive or negative) and if it overproduces the HER2 protein (HER2 positive or negative). We’ve been doing this type of...

Within the cancer research world, many scientists believe we answered the question about how cancer spread a long time ago. But here’s the thing about science: It’s always a work in progress. As I’ve mentioned before, when researchers observe a scientific phenomena...

I was recently reminded of the way we make progress in clinical research: with stories. We observe a clinical phenomenon and make up a hypothesis (story) as to why it happens—and we run with it, until proven wrong. When I started as a breast surgeon, like everyone...