Breast cancer: epidemiology, diagnosis, and treatment approaches

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Following are copies of the articles consulted to create the poster. All were retrieved 25 October 2004 from www.highbeam.com. The APA reference information has been placed at the head of each article, rather than the text as it appeared on the Web site as headlines and bylines.

All spot art was obtained from a Microsoft Word program, Office 2000. The pictures are free clip art, not copyrighted.

Exercise and Breast-Cancer Prevention: Study Finds It's Never Too Late to Start, Activity Need Not Be Strenuous. (2003) Ascribe Higher Education News Service, September 9, 2003. Retrieved 25 October 2004 from www.highbeam.com.

SEATTLE, Sept. 9 (AScribe Newswire) -- Increased physical activity, even when begun later in life, reduces overall breast-cancer risk by 20% among women at all levels of risk for the disease, according to a study led by researchers at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. Their findings appear in the Sept. 10 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

What's more, the activity need not be strenuous but it should be done consistently, such as taking a brisk, 30-minute walk five days a week, said lead investigator Anne McTiernan, M.D., Ph.D., a member of Fred Hutchinson's Public Health Sciences Division and director of the center's Prevention Center.

"We thought it was important to determine if moderate-intensity physical activities, such as walking, biking outdoors or easy swimming, when initiated later in life, can reduce the risk of breast cancer, since these types of activities are achievable for most women," said McTiernan, who is also the lead author of "Breast Fitness: An Optimal Exercise and Health Plan for Reducing Your Risk of Breast Cancer" (St. Martin's/Griffin Trade Paperback).

"Our results suggest that indeed, moderate activity, even when started in a woman's postmenopausal years, can cut her risk of breast cancer by about 20%, suggesting that physical inactivity may be a modifiable breast-cancer risk factor in older women."

In addition, the researchers found that regular exercise also causes a similar reduction in overall breast-cancer incidence among women considered to be at highest risk for the disease, such as those with a strong family history of breast cancer, those who've never had children and those who take combination estrogen/progestin hormone-replacement therapy. "The good news is that even though HRT increases the risk of breast cancer, exercise is something women can do to lower this risk if they choose to continue taking HRT to manage the symptoms of menopause or to prevent osteoporosis," McTiernan said.

McTiernan and colleagues also found that the less a woman weighs, the more regular, moderate exercise appears to have a protective effect. Women of low to normal weight - and even those who were moderately overweight - who exercised the equivalent of 10 hours of walking each week experienced breast-cancer risk reductions of more than 30%. Breast-cancer risk didn't budge, however, among women exercisers who were significantly overweight or obese.