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Debu Tripathy, MD Editor-in-Chief, CURE & Heal magazines |
San Antonio Attracts the Best of Breast Cancer Research
Every year, the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium brings together the brightest and most accomplished breast cancer researchers, along with a diverse group of clinicians specializing in different aspects of breast cancer care. After several decades of increased awareness and spending on breast cancer research, one would expect results. In fact, there have been tangible improvements on many fronts as illustrated by key findings presented at last year’s symposium.
We are detecting cancers earlier — especially in the subset of patients at very high genetic risk — using tools like magnetic resonance imaging. Newer breast cancer prevention drugs with fewer side effects are being tested, one having been approved in the past year with Evista. More women are being offered less invasive surgery using sentinel node biopsy, with less long-term lymphedema (arm swelling) and increasing confidence in who can undergo this procedure (it turns out more than half of all newly diagnosed patients).
We are refining our diagnostic tools to determine who should and should not receive chemotherapy drugs and which ones — a trend that will continue and extend into newer biological drugs like Herceptin, which was recently approved for earlier stages of HER2-positive breast cancer based on its ability to reduce recurrence and death for these patients.
The list goes on. Of course, we expect medical progress and impatiently want a cure to be around the corner, but every small step adds up. A higher fraction of women with breast cancer will live a cancer-free life after treatment. Physicians will be able to tailor therapy to a greater population of women and be more aware and attentive to long-term side effects of treatment. The holy grail of curing breast cancer, even in its advanced stage, has yet to be attained, although survival is being extended.
Why is the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium special? This meeting takes place in a charged atmosphere where researchers are competitive, yet collaborative, as science feeds off both innovation and cooperation. Clinicians and patient advocates are able to exchange ideas with investigators despite the fact that the meeting has grown by more than 20-fold from its first meeting in 1978 with just a couple of hundred attendees. Patients with cancer are paying more attention to cutting-edge developments because they are translated much more quickly into clinical reality.
So we invite you this year, and in the years to come, to be a part of this meeting in real time — we will give you the knowledge shared with us at this meeting throughout the symposium and will continue to cover the highlights and their implications over the coming year.
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Kathy LaTour Editor-at-Large, CURE & Heal magazines |
Advocates and the Symposium: Then and Now
The San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium has grown to more than 8,700 participants. But in 1994, it had reached its first milestone of 1,000 attendees. It was also the year that I first attended the symposium when three of my support group friends offered to accompany me to San Antonio where I had arranged for a table to give away my newly published book, The Breast Cancer Companion. It was a girl’s trip to the San Antonio Riverwalk with some book signing thrown in. We did sign-up for the only thing available to us, the lunch meeting where breast cancer physicians stood at a microphone and asked a panel of the top docs questions about cases.
The four of us arrived at lunch and got some strange looks from those filling the room because despite the fact that there was a smattering of women physicians attending, it was clear we weren’t one of “them.” No one said anything, but there was a distinct feeling in the air that we had somehow overstepped our boundaries.
As lunch progressed, an interesting thing happened; we started to hear the panel give answers with which we disagreed. In fact at one point, one of the famous panelists made the comment that “no woman should ever lose her breast,” as he extolled the virtues of lumpectomy versus mastectomy. What he explained was that women would do anything not to lose a breast.
“Wait a minute,” I remember thinking. “He is telling these doctors what I think and he doesn’t know what I think.” I told my surgeon to take my breast off with a butter knife if it would increase my chances of living to raise my child. My friends had similar reactions, and the drive back to Dallas was filled with talk of what we needed to do.
At the symposium this year, there will be more than 200 registered advocates, many of whom have clear agendas while here. For some, they will learn about science to go home and teach their peers. For others, they will try to meet with doctors about issues that they feel are not being addressed. Others will distribute or gather information for their own specific issues.
But the biggest change is that the doctors expect the breast cancer survivors to attend the symposium now. They interact and share information, I hope, because we are all fighting the same beast — breast cancer.
>> For comments, e-mail kathyl@curetoday.com
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Karen Patterson Managing Editor, Heal magazine |
San Antonio Has a Special Place in Breast Cancer History
Texas journalist and chili meister Frank Tolbert once noted that all Texans have two homes—the city where they live and San Antonio. That observation applies to the staffs of CURE and Heal as well, given that we are based in Dallas (about four hours up the interstate from San Antonio). And a meeting like the San Antonio symposium — where the latest research is being presented to benefit cancer patients and survivors — is right where we feel at home.
As for other Texans, I’d venture to guess that it’s San Antonio’s warmth, texture, and rich history that help fuel the connection. But besides the Alamo, there’s plenty of history for which San Antonio should be remembered, including in the area of breast cancer.
I asked Debu Tripathy, MD, editor-in-chief of CURE and Heal magazines, to rattle off a few memorable moments from symposia past. Here's what he offered:,
The SABCS has a rich tradition of "first-release" sessions.
In 2001, we first learned that a new class of hormonal drugs, other than tamoxifen, which entered the clinic in the 1970s, had an impact on lowering recurrence for early-stage breast cancer, and also heard the first results of Avastin used for advanced breast cancer.
In 2002, the buzzword "dose-dense" chemotherapy was coined as a new and improved way to give standard chemotherapy — using the same dose in a shorter period of time — and this rapidly became a new standard of care.
In 2003, we heard about new formulation of chemotherapy, using "nanomedicine" or a microparticle version of Taxol, resulting in fewer side effects and better effectiveness for metastatic breast cancer.
In 2004, came the initial data that MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) may be a more effective way to screen for breast cancer in women who carry BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutations, opening the door for more studies and later guidelines and insurance approvals for this technology in certain cases.
In 2005, the culmination of the year was the first targeted therapy, Herceptin, was found to lower recurrences in early-stage breast cancer, and at San Antonio that year, we saw the first data of a study that used a regimen that appeared to minimize side effects on the heart, a problem that has been known for many years.
At the 2006 meeting, we learned about trends in breast cancer incidence, particularly why we saw a slight downtick beginning a few years ago; and this year we will hear a continuation of the possible explanations. We also heard about early and more mature results from a variety of newer treatments that either already have or will hopefully soon continue to increase the lifespan of those with advanced breast cancer — targeted drugs like Tykerb. And we heard more on how and in whom to use drugs approved not too long ago, such as the hormonal therapy, Faslodex. There were new findings on genetic and protein tests that will more precisely determine who should receive which drug, and how certain drugs like Herceptin are moving into early-stage breast cancer therapy to prevent recurrences before they ever happen. Finally, there was exciting new imaging and blood tests that may help detect breast cancer at its earliest stages — so early that perhaps no additional therapy may be needed after minimally invasive surgery.
Just to get a taste of how international this breast cancer meeting is, my first encounter with fellow attendees, on a shuttle bus from the convention center to my hotel involved a group of five Argentineans who had picked up registration packs for some of their fellow travelers — 37 in all.
>> For comments, e-mail karen.patterson@curetoday.com
CURE and Heal would like to give a special thanks to the following non-profit partners
for making this information available to their constituents:
American Cancer Society • People Living with Cancer
HER2 Support • Inflammatory Breast Cancer Research Fund • Men Against Breast Cancer
National Breast Cancer Coalition • Pink-Link
