Ever since the 1970's, when lumptectomy was shown to be as effective as mastectomy for treating early-stage breast cancer, surgeons have been stumped by one of the most vexing problems in oncology: how wide should the margins be around the tumor to insure adequate removal of the cancer so that the risk of local recurrence or, worse, distant metastatic spread can be driven down as low as possible?

Early on, the conventional...

I go to bed early and wake up early, but I don't get up right away.  I listen to the radio, the news and shows on NPR (WNYC.)  

This morning I learned that the women behind MADD, mothers against...

I knew it was important to get good grades in medical school; that is, I knew it was important to know the material.  And I knew I had to master diagnostic skills, too, like learning to distinguish different heart murmurs or identify degrees of burn to the skin.  But what I was most interested in learning was not the knowledge of medicine, per se, but how to use that knowledge in...

Dear 85 Broads Friends, 

I just created a petition at change.org to support Professor Vincent Tuohy's preventive breast cancer vaccine because I care deeply about this very important issue. 

I'm trying to collect 100 signatures, and I could really use your help. 

To read more about what I'm trying to do and to sign my petition, click here:
http://www.change.org/petitions/congressman-pascrell-contact-congressman-pascrell-to-support-tuohys-breast-cancer-vaccine?share_id=bfzqStHdsF& 

Many believe that stress increases a woman's risk for breast cancer, but in the past this theory has been hard to prove.  But just recently scientists in Canada have discovered an important clue for how stress can cause and promote breast cancer.

The part of our nervous system involved in the "fight or flight" response to stress is called the sympathetic nervous system and its nerves release chemicals, known as neurotransmitters, such...

BRCA is a gene that repairs damaged DNA.  Everyone inherits two, one from each parent.

Like all genes, BRCA can become mutated, altered in such a way that its function is impaired.  Even a mutated BRCA gene can, and will, be passed down to subsequent generations.  BRCA mutations occur in 1% of Ashkenazi Jews, are more commonly seen in hispanic than white women, and are more frequently associated with triple-negative breast cancer.

Two...

 What if 10-20% of drivers ran stop signs?  What if 10-20% of the pills in your medicine bottle were the wrong pills?  What if 10-20% of estrogen-positive breast cancers were misdiagnosed as negative?   Of these three scenarios, the last, unfortunately, is devastatingly true.  The standard of care used to test whether a breast cancer is estrogen positive has a 10-20% failure rate.  Consequently, a significant number of women – approximately 20,000 per...

Black women have a higher risk of developing a certain type of breast cancer, one that is more aggressive and less amenable to targeted therapies such as anti-estrogen drugs (tamoxifen, aromatase inhibitors) and monoclonal antibodies like Herceptin.  While the cause of this unfortunate epidemiologic disparity remains unclear, researchers have identified two risk factors that ought to...

     Fractals are forms whose parts look like the whole.  The best example, taken from nature, of a fractal form is found in the garden this time of year:  broccoli.  Take the smallest branch of broccoli and compare it to the whole stalk.  They look alike; they are...