Researchers are improving the chances of women faced with an aggressive and difficult to diagnose form of breast cancer. Inflammatory breast cancer spreads quickly and can be lethal in six to nine months.

A new service is available to help women work out whether they have an increased risk of getting breast cancer. It is an online calculator and its aim is to give women earlier diagnosis and treatment.

Proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (№H MRS) used in conjunction with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can aid radiologists in diagnosing breast cancer while reducing the number of false-positive results and invasive biopsies, according to a study focusing on non-mass enhancing breast lesions.

When a woman receives a breast cancer diagnosis her entire life may change in the blink of an eye. But the nature of that change is governed by the smallest alterations that take place within the proteins of the tumor cells, determining what treatments she can pursue with a hope of cure and those to which her cancer is resistant.

The ‘two week wait rule’ is failing breast cancer patients and needs to be reviewed urgently say the authors of a seven year study examining the impact of the target, published today on bmj.com.

Women diagnosed with breast cancer should either get exercising or keep exercising. This is the message from a new study in Springer's Journal of Cancer Survivorship by Catherine Alfano and colleagues at the Ohio State University1. The study of over 500 women who had survived breast cancer highlights how physical activity, and more specifically the intensity and amount of physical activity you do before and after cancer treatment, can affect future symptoms and your quality of life.

Women who have been diagnosed with breast cancer in one breast have a higher risk of contracting the disease in their opposite breast as well. A thorough examination of the opposite breast using mammography and ultrasound is therefore common practice. However, many tumours still remain undetected when using mammography.

When added to a medical workup after a breast cancer diagnosis, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans can significantly improve the chances of detecting cancer in the opposite breast, according to clinical trial results reported in the New England Journal of Medicine. The American College of Radiology Imaging Network, whose biostatistics center is based at Brown University, conducted the study, funded by The National Cancer Institute.

Women with a recent diagnosis of cancer in one breast should have MRI screening of the opposite breast, concludes a multi-center study involving University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill researchers.