Breast Cancer

Breast Cancer is by far the leading cause of cancer deaths in women, and though the proportion Chinese women who die from breast cancer may be relatively fewer than in most large, developed nations (about 5.7 out of 100,000 deaths in China, as opposed to 14.7 out of 100,000 deaths in the United States) breast cancer rates have risen dramatically in the past two decades – a 2007 report cited a 23 percent increase in Beijing between the years of 1997 to 2007. 

Now a more recent China Daily report (via the People’s Daily) cites a survey conducted between 1999 to 2008 by the Cancer Foundation of China that indicates Chinese women developing the disease at “a much younger age” than women in other countries.  

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An excerpt from former Beijing resident Susan Conley's forthcoming memoir The Foremost Good Fortune  recently appeared in the New York Times. Conley, who moved to Beijing with her husband and two sons in 2008, writes in her memoir about how her family used "humor and good old fashioned love in the face of dislocation [in] a foreign country," as well as about the trials of living overseas while dealing with breast cancer.

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Some (possible) good news and bad news concerning breast cancer: On the positive tip is an interesting, albeit vague, article in the US News & World Report about a paper published in a recent edition of Nature Medicine concerning a possible vaccine for breast cancer.

According to the article: “The study authors gave vaccinations to mice that were genetically engineered to be susceptible to cancer. The mice that were vaccinated with an anti-cancer antigen didn't develop tumors, but all the others did.”

Further studies have yet to be done on this potential vaccine, which would be targeted at women over the age of 40, but researchers are optimistic about the implications, citing the antigen’s effectiveness on the mice.

Less encouraging news, unfortunately, comes in the form of an article in the current issue of Hormones and Cancer (via foodconsumer.org) that claims “… fetuses exposed to chemicals like Bisphenol-A (BPA) and Diethylstilbestrol (DES) in the womb may have a higher risk of developing breast cancer in their adulthood …”

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