When found positive for the breast cancer gene, BRCA, Jessica Queller elected double prophylactic mastectomy to reduce her risk of breast cancer down to about 3%. Her sister, who also tested positive for the gene, followed suit. Their hopes are that this procedure will improve her future plans to raising her own family. Read her remarkable story: http://www.newsweek.com/id/131985?GT1=43... Would you have the courage to do this, or to advise your daughter to do so, if warranted?

By OLIVIA STERNS, JEN PERIERA, THEA TRACHTENBERG and LAURA ZACCARO
ABC NEWS

A year and a half ago, "Sex and the City" co-star Cynthia Nixon was diagnosed with breast cancer, but she kept it to herself.

Doctors don't know everything, breast cancer survivor Kylie Minogue says.

The Aussie singer, 39, told Ellen DeGeneres yesterday that her first physician failed to diagnose her with the disease.

"Because someone is in a white coat and using big medical instruments doesn't necessarily mean they're right," she said.

Read full story

By Jeffrey Perkel
EmpowHer's HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, April 9 (HealthDay News) -- A new long-term analysis of breast cancer patient survival suggests it might be time to update the way pathologists test lymph node biopsies.

A team of New York City physicians found about one in four patients originally declared to be free of cancerous cells in their sentinel lymph nodes were actually not cancer-free, and that tiny cancer remnants called micrometastases reduced the women's survival over a 20-year period.

By E.J. Mundell
EmpowHer's HealthDay Reporter

FRIDAY, April 4 (HealthDay News) -- Although most cancer survivors polled in a recent survey said they had been fearful of undergoing chemotherapy, most also said the treatments were much less trying than they had expected.

In fact, 94 percent said they would advise others to undergo chemotherapy if their doctor recommended it.

Has anyone ever heard of false positives for BRACAs? If so, what was your experience? If you received the false positive on the test, what were your next steps or tests?

Yes

No

By Amanda Gardner
EmpowHer's HealthDay Reporter

TUESDAY, March 18 (HealthDay News) -- The use of radiation therapy in fewer, but higher doses appears to be just as effective as conventional doses for women recovering from breast cancer, British researchers report.

Because fewer treatments are needed, the overall amount of radiation the patient receives is actually less, though treatment outcomes remain the same or better, according to two British trials appearing this week in the April edition of the journal Lancet Oncology and an upcoming edition of The Lancet.

Wyeth and Upjohn Co. were ordered to pay more than $27 million in punitive damages to an Arkansas woman after a federal jury concluded she developed breast cancer from taking the firms' hormone-replacement therapies.

The jury last week awarded $2.7 million in compensatory damages after finding the firms hadn't adequately warned Donna Scroggin that the drugs carried an increased risk of breast cancer. Yesterday, it said Wyeth should pay $19.4 million and Upjohn, a Pfizer Inc. unit, should pay $7.8 million.

By Amanda Gardner
EmpowHer's HealthDay Reporter

THURSDAY, March 6 (HealthDay News) -- New research shows that women who experienced a recurrence of their breast cancer had almost twice as much estrogen in their blood as women who remained cancer-free after treatment.

This indicates that circulating estrogen levels contribute to a recurrence as much as the initial malignancy does.