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The Pink Dragons dragon boat breast cancer survivors’ team celebrated their 10th Anniversary last year with a special Regatta joined by many other dragon boat teams. All the teams dressed up for the ‘Swashbucklers’ themed afternoon but unfortunately the weather had other ideas about the teams getting out on the water to race!
Busting with Life, along with the Pink Dragons, competed at the World Masters Games in April.
With the World Masters Games right here in their hood it seemed only right and proper that the two Auckland Breast Cancer Survivors Dragon Boat Teams combined forces to take on the world.
Has fitness been on your to do list? Looking to widen your friendships? Are you asking yourself – what does life after breast cancer offer?
Dragon boating in the Busting with Life team could be your answer to all of these questions.
New research has found that random and unpredictable DNA copying “mistakes” are responsible for nearly two-thirds of the mutations that cause cancer.
This means “environmental” influences, such as nutrition and exercise, play less of a role in many cancer cases than previously thought.
New guidelines in the UK recommend that healthy post-menopausal women with a familial risk of developing breast cancer be prescribed the medicine anastrazole in a bid to help ward off the disease.
The recommendation comes from the UK’s drug regulator, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), which has just updated its familial breast cancer guidelines.
The Institute already recommends that healthy pre-menopausal women with the BRCA gene mutations be prescribed the hormone therapy, tamoxifen, for at least five years.
Eating foods rich in isoflavones, which are found in soy products, could help to reduce the death rate in women with certain types of breast cancer.
A new study, published in the journal Cancer, found that isoflavones are associated with lower death rates in women with hormone-receptor-negative breast cancer and those who are not receiving endocrine therapy.
Isoflavones are oestrogen-like compounds found in certain foods, mainly soy products such as tofu, soy milk, miso and edamame beans.
New results from a major clinical trial testing the breakthrough breast cancer drug, Perjeta, show that it helped women with early HER-2 Positive breast cancer live longer.
Headline results from the Phase III APHINITY trial have just been released by the pharmaceutical company Roche.
They show that women with HER-2 Positive early breast cancer who were given Perjeta plus Herceptin and chemotherapy after surgery to remove the tumour experienced a “statistically significant reduction” in the risk of the disease recurring or death, compared with those who received Herceptin and chemotherapy alone.
The researchers have not yet released the full results of the trial and plan to do so at the upcoming American Society of Clinical Oncology annual meeting in June.
Two of the country’s major breast cancer charities have joined forces to plead for the 160 women denied public access to the breakthrough breast cancer drug, Perjeta.
The Breast Cancer Aotearoa Coalition (BCAC) and the NZ Breast Cancer Foundation (NZBCF) are calling on Pharmac to extend funding for Perjeta to women already being treated with Herceptin.
Late last year, Pharmac decided to fund Perjeta, a revolutionary treatment for advanced HER2-positive breast cancer that is used in combination with Herceptin and the chemotherapy drug, docetaxel.
But it ruled that it would only fund Perjeta as a first-line treatment, which means it is only available to those who have not received any other kind of treatment for HER-2 positive breast cancer.
The latest in new and innovative breast cancer treatments and recent developments to empower patients were discussed at the Australia New Zealand Breast Cancer Clinical Trials Group (ANZBCTG) conference in Australia.
Five BCAC committee members attended the conference which focused on the theme Partners for Progress in Breast Cancer Research and Care.
BCAC chairperson, Libby Burgess, says the meeting provided a comprehensive overview of the latest in breast cancer research and new treatment options.
She says screening has contributed to reducing breast cancer mortality, but future advances are predicted to be in smarter, more targeted treatments, with immunotherapy likely to provide exciting options over the next few years.
The Breast Cancer Aotearoa Coalition (BCAC) is thrilled that New Zealand women with advanced breast cancer will finally be able to get the breakthrough breast cancer drug Perjeta from next year, but is bitterly disappointed that a large number will be denied access to this potentially life-extending medicine.
The Government’s drug funding agency, PHARMAC, said today it would fund pertuzumab or Perjeta for New Zealand women with Her2-Positive advanced breast cancer from January 1, 2017, however it has not considered funding the medicine for women who are already receiving treatment for metastatic breast cancer.
