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It’s been a busy season for the Pink Dragons team and ending on a high with us finally winning a gold medal at this year’s National Championships at Blue Lake Rotorua. A number of new paddlers joined us throughout the season with a couple joining only weeks before Regionals and Nationals! Without all our new members we would not have been able to achieve our success this season. Our success is not only measured by the medals won but by the friendship and support given to those new paddlers, often only having just completed their treatment and trying to pick up their lives once again.
New research shows that a 12-month treatment programme of Herceptin is still the best option for women with HER2-positive breast cancer, according to the Breast Cancer Aotearoa Coalition (BCAC).
The latest data from two large clinical trials investigating Herceptin (trastuzumab) was presented at the European Society of Medical Oncology (ESMO) in Vienna, Austria overnight.
The French PHARE trial compared a six-month Herceptin treatment programme with 12 months, while the HERA trial compared 12 months with 24 months.
The results of the PHARE trial were inconclusive, but its principal researcher, Professor Xavier Pivot said “there is a trend in favour of 12 months treatment for the overall population”.
Psychologist Dr Geraldine Meechan takes us through the different emotional phases of breast cancer treatment and recovery and provides tips on how to manage the stress and anxiety.
BCAC is excited to see new results from a clinical trial which show that women diagnosed with HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer lived longer when they received the experimental medicine T-DM1 (trastuzumab emtansine).
The results come out of the phase III EMILIA study which involves more than 990 women diagnosed with metastatic or advanced HER2–positive breast cancer who had stopped responding to standard treatments.
BCAC applauds a campaign which has seen a massive increase in mammogram screening for Chinese and Korean women in the Waitemata region of Auckland.
Breast screening uptake has soared by an extraordinary 88 per cent among Chinese and Korean women in the Waitemata District Health Board area in the three years to 2011.
The increase follows a campaign by BreastScreen Waitemata Northland (BSWN) and Waitemata Asian Health Support Services (AHSS), which targeted the region’s Asian population.
Around 13 per cent of the region’s population identifies as Asian and in 2007 only 43 per cent of eligible Asian women were getting mammograms.
There are numerous breast clinics throughout New Zealand specialising in breast cancer care. We list a number of them here.
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The Breast Centre, Auckland
An excellent website which contains an information portal that provides details about breast cancer care and treatment, as well as information about general breast health and all manner of breast procedures. Surgeon Trevor Smith also produces a useful book on breast care.
The Breast Cancer Aotearoa Coalition (BCAC) says women can have confidence in the country’s breast screening programme and must continue to use it.
A group of clinicians and consumers from across the breast cancer spectrum have come together to form a working group to improve breast cancer care throughout New Zealand.
A New Zealand breast clinic will soon start using an innovative new software, which helps to measure breast density resulting in the more accurate identification of tumours.
The software has been developed by Wellington technology company, Matakina, and is already being used in the USA, South Korea and Malaysia.
Hereditary breast cancer or breast cancer that is driven by mutations in the genes is responsible for up to 10 per cent of breast cancers.
To learn more about breast cancer and genetics, you can click here to view a video of a Q and A session on this topic run by Breast Cancer Trials.
Hereditary breast cancer can often be a very difficult form of cancer to deal with because women or men who are diagnosed may worry about other members of the family who could carry the high-risk genes.
