Problems in transition and quality of care: perspectives of breast cancer survivors

Purpose  

We conducted a qualitative study to explore breast cancer survivors’ perceptions and attitudes about their current healthcare utilization, screening, and information needs.     

Fluorescence Imaging and Whole-Body Biodistribution of Near-Infrared-Emitting Quantum Dots after Subcutaneous Injection for Regional Lymph Node Mapping in Mice

Purpose  

This study compares fluorescence imaging to mass spectroscopy (inductively coupled plasma–mass spectroscopy, ICP–MS) for detection of quantum dots (QDs) in sentinel lymph node (LN) mapping of breast cancer.     

A Genetic Strategy for Combined Screening and Localized Imaging of Breast Cancer

Purpose  

Improvements are needed for the early detection of breast cancer, as current imaging methods lack sensitivity to detect small tumors and assess their disease phenotype.     

Breast cancer risk factor knowledge among nurses in teaching hospitals of Karachi, Pakistan: a cross-sectional study

Background  

Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women in both the developed and the developing world. The incidence of breast cancer in Karachi, Pakistan is 69.1 per 100,000 with breast cancer presentation in stages III and IV being common (≥ 50%). The most pragmatic solution to early detection lies in breast cancer education of women. Nurses constitute a special group having characteristics most suited for disseminating breast cancer information to the women. We assessed the level of knowledge of breast cancer risk factors among registered female nurses in teaching hospitals of Karachi. We also identified whether selected factors among nurses were associated with their knowledge of breast cancer risk factors, so that relevant measures to improve knowledge of nurses could be implemented.     

A qualitative assessment of upper quarter dysfunction reported by physical therapists treated for breast cancer or treating breast cancer sequelae

Purpose  

As survival rates for breast cancer improve, long-term effects of treatment are receiving increasing attention, including upper quarter impairments and functional limitations. The purpose of this study was to assess, through qualitative means, the long-term effects of breast cancer treatment on upper quarter function as reported by those with expertise in upper quarter dysfunction. Participants were physical therapists who were either breast cancer survivors (“survivors”) or those who specialized in treatment of individuals post-breast cancer (“treaters”).     

Development of the Psychosocial Distress Questionnaire��Breast Cancer (PDQ-BC): a breast cancer-specific screening instrument for psychosocial problems

Purpose  

The aim of the present study was to develop a short, easy-to-use, and acceptable psychosocial screening instrument specific for breast cancer patients.     

Automatic breast parenchymal density classification integrated into a CADe system

Purpose  

Breast parenchymal density is an important risk factor for breast cancer. It is known that mammogram interpretation is more difficult where dense tissue is involved. Therefore, automated breast density classification may aid in breast lesion detection and analysis.     

Social support and depressive mood 1?year after diagnosis of breast cancer compared with the general female population: a prospective cohort study

Background  

Social support may influence the impact of stressful life events on breast cancer patients’ psychological state. However, the precise status of depressive mood in breast cancer during the first year after diagnosis is not yet known.     

Image feature evaluation in two new mammography CAD prototypes

Purpose  

Breast cancer is a common but treatable disease for adult women. Improvements in breast cancer detection and treatment have helped to lower mortality, but there is still a need for further improvements, particularly for better computer-aided diagnosis (CADx) and computer-aided detection (CADe).     

Measures of angular spread and entropy for the detection of architectural distortion in prior mammograms

Purpose

Architectural distortion is an important sign of early breast cancer. We present methods for computer-aided detection of architectural distortion in mammograms acquired prior to the diagnosis of breast cancer in the interval between scheduled screening sessions.

Methods

Potential sites of architectural distortion were detected using node maps obtained through the application of a bank of Gabor filters and linear phase portrait modeling. A total of 4,224 regions of interest (ROIs) were automatically obtained from 106 prior mammograms of 56 interval-cancer cases, including 301 true-positive ROIs, and from 52 mammograms of 13 normal cases. Each ROI was represented by three types of entropy measures of angular histograms composed with the Gabor magnitude response, angle, coherence, orientation strength, and the angular spread of power in the Fourier spectrum, including Shannon’s entropy, Tsallis entropy for nonextensive systems, and Rényi entropy for extensive systems.

Results

Using the entropy measures with stepwise logistic regression and the leave-one-patient-out method for feature selection and cross-validation, an artificial neural network resulted in an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.75. Free-response receiver operating characteristics indicated a sensitivity of 0.80 at 5.2 false positives (FPs) per patient.

Conclusion

The proposed methods can detect architectural distortion in prior mammograms taken 15 months (on the average) before clinical diagnosis of breast cancer, with a high sensitivity and a moderate number of FPs per patient. The results are promising and may be improved with additional features to characterize subtle abnormalities and larger databases including prior mammograms.     

Development of High-Throughput Quantitative Assays for Glucose Uptake in Cancer Cell Lines

Purpose  

Metabolism, and especially glucose uptake, is a key quantitative cell trait that is closely linked to cancer initiation and progression. Therefore, developing high-throughput assays for measuring glucose uptake in cancer cells would be enviable for simultaneous comparisons of multiple cell lines and microenvironmental conditions. This study was designed with two specific aims in mind: the first was to develop and validate a high-throughput screening method for quantitative assessment of glucose uptake in “normal” and tumor cells using the fluorescent 2-deoxyglucose analog 2-[N-(7-nitrobenz-2-oxa-1,3-diazol-4-yl)amino]-2-deoxyglucose (2-NBDG), and the second was to develop an image-based, quantitative, single-cell assay for measuring glucose uptake using the same probe to dissect the full spectrum of metabolic variability within populations of tumor cells in vitro in higher resolution.     

2D/3D image fusion of X-ray mammograms with breast MRI: visualizing dynamic contrast enhancement in mammograms

Purpose  

Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women. The established screening method to detect breast cancer is X-ray mammography. Additionally, MRI is used for diagnosis in clinical routine. Due to complementary diagnostic information, both modalities are often read in combination. Yet, the correlation is challenging due to different dimensionality of images and different patient positioning. In this paper, we describe a method to fuse X-ray mammograms with DCE-MRI. The present study was conducted to evaluate the feasibility of the approach.     

Predictors of adherence to a behavioral therapy sleep intervention during breast cancer chemotherapy

Background  

This study’s purpose was twofold: (1) to establish adherence rates to a behavioral therapy (BT) sleep intervention and (2) to identify psychological and physical symptom predictors of adherence to the intervention in women undergoing breast cancer chemotherapy.     

Role of the general practitioner during the active breast cancer treatment phase: an analysis of health care use

Purpose  

Little is known about the actual involvement of the general practitioner (GP) during the active breast cancer treatment phase. Therefore, this study explored (disease-specific) primary health care use among women undergoing active treatment for breast cancer compared with women without breast cancer.     

Detection of architectural distortion in prior screening mammograms using Gabor filters, phase portraits, fractal dimension, and texture analysis

Objective Mammography is a widely used screening tool for the early detection of breast cancer. One of the commonly missed signs of breast cancer is architectural distortion. The purpose of this study is to explore the application of fractal analysis and texture measures for the detection of architectural distortion in screening mammograms taken prior to the detection of breast cancer. Materials and methods A method based on Gabor filters and phase portrait analysis was used to detect initial candidates for sites of architectural distortion. A total of 386 regions of interest (ROIs) were automatically obtained from 14 “prior mammograms”, including 21 ROIs related to architectural distortion. From the corresponding set of 14 “detection mammograms”, 398 ROIs were obtained, including 18 related to breast cancer. For each ROI, the fractal dimension and Haralick’s texture features were computed. The fractal dimension of the ROIs was calculated using the circular average power spectrum technique. Results The average fractal dimension of the normal (false-positive) ROIs was significantly higher than that of the ROIs with architectural distortion (p = 0.006). For the “prior mammograms”, the best receiver operating characteristics (ROC) performance achieved, in terms of the area under the ROC curve, was 0.80 with a Bayesian classifier using four features including fractal dimension, entropy, sum entropy, and inverse difference moment. Analysis of the performance of the methods with free-response receiver operating characteristics indicated a sensitivity of 0.79 at 8.4 false positives per image in the detection of sites of architectural distortion in the “prior mammograms”. Conclusion Fractal dimension offers a promising way to detect the presence of architectural distortion in prior mammograms.     

Yoga of Awareness program for menopausal symptoms in breast cancer survivors: results from a randomized trial

Goal of work  

Breast cancer survivors have limited options for the treatment of hot flashes and related symptoms. Further, therapies widely used to prevent recurrence in survivors, such as tamoxifen, tend to induce or exacerbate menopausal symptoms. The aim of this preliminary, randomized controlled trial was to evaluate the effects of a yoga intervention on menopausal symptoms in a sample of survivors of early-stage breast cancer (stages IA–IIB).     

Is bra discomfort a barrier to exercise for breast cancer patients?

Goals of work  

Although exercise can provide a range of benefits for women living with a breast cancer diagnosis, many impediments to exercise exist. Several psychosocial and physical capacity impediments to exercise have been investigated, but no study has systematically investigated whether bras impede breast cancer patients from exercising. This study aimed to assess the extent to which exercise-induced breast pain and bra discomfort were reported by women living with breast cancer and whether this breast pain and bra discomfort impeded these women from participating in physical activity.     

Older women, breast cancer, and social support

Introduction  

One in ten women over the age of 65 will develop breast cancer. Despite this high incidence of breast cancer among older women, social support for them is often inadequate. This paper describes a qualitative study of the impact of a breast cancer diagnosis on older women from racially/ethnically diverse populations and their subsequent need for social support.     

Automatic segmentation of pulmonary blood vessels and nodules based on local intensity structure analysis and surface propagation in 3D chest CT images

Purpose  

Pulmonary nodules may indicate the early stage of lung cancer, and the progress of lung cancer causes associated changes in the shape and number of pulmonary blood vessels. The automatic segmentation of pulmonary nodules and blood vessels is desirable for chest computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) systems. Since pulmonary nodules and blood vessels are often attached to each other, conventional nodule detection methods usually produce many false positives (FPs) in the blood vessel regions, and blood vessel segmentation methods may incorrectly segment the nodules that are attached to the blood vessels. A method to simultaneously and separately segment the pulmonary nodules and blood vessels was developed and tested.     

Association of the VEGF 936C>T Polymorphism with FDG Uptake,Clinical, Histopathological,and Metabolic Response in Patients with Adenocarcinomas of the Esophagogastric Junction

Purpose  

The MUNICON trial confirmed prospectively the usefulness of early response evaluation by 2-deoxy-2-[F-18]fluoro-D-glucose-positron emission tomography (FDG-PET) . Metabolic responders (R) showed initially a higher FDG uptake compared with nonresponders (p = 0.018). An association of the vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) 936C>T polymorphism and FDG uptake was reported for breast cancer. Therefore, we investigated the VEGF 936C>T polymorphism for an association with response and survival.