Women who as children got radiation treatment for Hodgkin's disease are almost 40 times more likely than others to develop breast cancer, according to findings from five institutions, including the University of Florida.

Young women who develop breast cancer during their pregnancy, or who are diagnosed within one year of their pregnancy, have no difference in rates of local recurrence, distant metastases and overall survival compared to other young women with the disease, according to researchers at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center.

Laboratory work in animals showed limited activity when statins were given to prevent breast cancer, according to a report in the February issue of Cancer Prevention Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.

Researchers of the Catalonian Institute of Oncology (Spain) and the University of Granada (Spain) have discovered that extra virgin olive oil may help to combat breast cancer, according to a paper published in the last issue of the renowned scientific journal ‘BMC Cancer’.

Chemotherapy is an integral part of modern cancer treatment, but it's not always effective. Successful chemotherapy depends on the ability of anticancer drugs to escape from the bloodstream through the leaky blood vessels that often surround tumors.

On Thursday, U.S. researchers stated that the so-called breast cancer genes (BRCA1 and BRCA2) can raise the risk that a man who develops prostate cancer will get an aggressive form of the disease.

A preventive procedure to remove the unaffected breast in breast cancer patients with disease in one breast may only be necessary in patients who have high-risk features as assessed by examining the patient's medical history and pathology of the breast cancer, according to researchers at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center.

Dr. Michael Lisanti and colleagues at Thomas Jefferson University found that extended lactation protects again mammary tumor development. These findings are presented in the February 2009 issue of The American Journal of Pathology.

A team of researchers, led by Filippo Giancotti and Yuliya Pylayeva, at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, has provided new insight into the initiation, maintenance, and progression to metastasis of a specific subset of human and mouse breast cancers.

Several studies had previously suggested that regular physical exercise reduces the breast cancer risk of women. However, it had been unknowned just how much exercise women should take in which period in life in order to benefit from this protective effect. Moreover, little was known about which particular type of breast cancer is influenced by physical activity.

Canadian researchers have identified a new protein in the progression of breast cancer. According to a recent study from the Université de Montréal and the University of Alberta, published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, the protein ARF1 plays a critical role in cancer cell growth and the spread of tumours.

Higher-than-normal levels of insulin place postmenopausal women at increased risk of breast cancer, researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University report.