Keenly aware of the specific medical issues of concern to women, as well as the fact that women may experience certain conditions and treatment differently than men, Harvard Medical School felt the time had come for Harvard Women's Health Watch. Each issue covers a wide range of women’s health topics including breast cancer, diet and nutrition, hormone therapy, exercise, vitamins and supplements, and much more.
Excerpt from Women’s Health Watch
Talk to any breast cancer specialist who attended the May 2005 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) meeting — the largest annual gathering of cancer researchers and clinicians in the world — and you’re likely to detect excitement in their voices. This was a year when they heard results that could markedly change the way they take care of their patients. The buzz was about targeted therapy, that is, treatment aimed directly at gene products (proteins) and other factors responsible for cancerous cell growth.
Fundamental to this approach is an understanding that not all breast cancers are alike. Although researchers have long known that breast cancer doesn’t behave the same way in everyone — after all, some women do well with traditional treatments and others don’t — they’ve only recently begun to penetrate the disease at a molecular level and appreciate that it’s actually many diseases. This new knowledge is beginning to make it possible to match the right therapy with the right patient.
Perhaps just as exciting is the prospect that advances are likely to come more quickly now that certain developments and tools are in place. Getting a breast cancer diagnosis will no doubt always be scary, but it’s becoming possible to envision a time when finding a lump or hearing the words “You have breast cancer” won’t evoke the terror it did in years past.