Active clinical trials for "Breast Neoplasms"

Twenty-five women will be followed through their breast cancer treatment. The women will be asked to provide their opinions and desires for lifestyle intervention at different times throughout treatment. In addition, basic clinical data will be collected . The primary goal of this pilot study is to investigate the physical and behavioral changes that occur in patients receiving treatment for breast cancer.

The primary objective of this study is to determine the correlation between the distribution of F-18 FES within ER+ breast tumors as seen on Positron Emission Mammography (PEM) images of the breast, and the distribution of cells stained ER+ within the tumor by immunohistochemistry (IHC) measurements at surgical pathology. The secondary aim is to determine if the correlation (or lack of) between F-18 FES uptake and F-18 FDG uptake as imaged by PEM, is an accurate representation of the heterogeneity of ER expression in the tumor.

At present, patients diagnosed of a breast cancer with infiltration of the axillary lymph-nodes are submitted to axillary lymph-node dissection (ALND). The sentinel node (SN) technique is not indicated when a lymph-node biopsy or cytology is positive, nor when the surgical treatment is upfront neither when a neoadjuvant systemic therapy is indicated. The reason for not performing SN is that patients diagnosed of an infiltrated axilla though ultrasound-guided biopsy or cytology tend to have a higher tumoral load than those diagnosed after a sentinel biopsy. Furthermore, even if these patients are submitted to a neoadjuvant systemic treatment and the axillary clinical exploration is negative after the treatment, different studies showed that the SN false negative rate is unacceptably high. Despite these facts, a high proportion of patients with a positive axilla at diagnosis and submitted to level I and II axillary lymph node dissection show few lymph nodes infiltrated in the pathological study, frequently four or less neoplastic nodes. New methods of detecting these patients with limited infiltrated nodes should be developed and new approaches to axillary surgery (i.e., partial resection) should be offered. To date, the only information expected to get after an axillary imaging is performed is if the axilla is infiltrated or not. No information about the tumoral load is demanded. In the other hand, level I and II ALND is performed according to established anatomic limits, without selecting the nodes to be excised neither identifying the ones infiltrated for a directed excision. The aim of the study is to evaluate the ability of a specified and reproducible imaging protocol for distinguishing patients with a high axillary tumoral load from the ones with a low tumoral load. At the same time, as the initial nodes receiving lymph drainage should be the ones commonly affected, identifying these nodes injecting diluted methylene blue in the retroareolar parenchyma and studying their tumoral load could help selecting patients with high from those with low axillary tumoral load. Evaluation of both steps (that is, first the imaging protocol followed by the methylene blue protocol), could eventually help to distinguish which patients should be submitted to a classical level I and II ALND and which ones can be spared from excising the lymph nodes not stained by the methylene blue.

The objective of this study is to apply Whole-body DW imaging alongside the routine management of patients requiring systemic therapy for metastatic breast cancer to compare the time to progression of individual liver metastases within and between patients following stable disease or partial response to palliative systemic therapy for breast cancer.

Change of IL-6 and IL-8 level in blood and pleural effusion before and after chemotherapy correlate with the prognosis of the disease

After locating the suspicious lesion/mass with standard of care mammography and/or ultrasound, a photoacoustic scan will be performed in the breast where the lesion is located. After the PA scan a biopsy will be performed, if clinically indicated (based on the mammogram and ultrasound only).

To see if performing breast MRI before a lumpectomy will help the surgeon successfully remove the entire cancer with normal tissue margins in a single operation thereby reducing the need for additional surgical procedures. The study will also measure how well MRI can find unsuspected cancers in the same breast as the known cancer; how well MRI will find unsuspected cancers in the opposite breast; how often MRI will generate false positive MRI findings; whether routinely incorporating breast MRI delays care or adds unnecessary cost; and, whether breast MRI is able to reduce the frequency of cancer recurrence in the treated breast or elsewhere in the body.

To determine the sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy of preoperative ultrasound, elastography, mammography and breast MRI in women with dense breast tissue diagnosed with breast cancer; to test whether elastography or MRI can improve upon routine mammogram and conventional ultrasound in women with dense breast tissue.

This study is to find out if 3.0 Tesla (3.0-T) Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) will improve in diagnosing breast cancer in women with high-risk of breast cancer.

The purpose of this study is to provide the physicians with quality long term follow up data on subjects from the Breast Cancer Clinic and the Plastic Surgery Clinic who have been newly diagnosed with breast cancer and will receive treatment for the cancer at this facility. Over the last two decades many studies have been done concerning the quality of life after a mastectomy and/or reconstruction process. The majority of these studies only run for one year post reconstruction, some however, do include a two year follow up. The investigators are proposing a 5 year long term follow up study on subjects who will be diagnosed and treated here at the Breast Cancer Clinic and the Plastic Surgery Clinic. The investigators first questionnaire will be given prior to any treatment for breast cancer, giving us a baseline for the subject's current quality of life. At each successive year, the subject will be given another questionnaire with regards to their progression through the reconstructive process. At the end of 5 years, the subject will complete a final questionnaire. These questionnaires will deal with many areas of daily life functions; activities of daily living, anxiety, depression, social interactions, personal and sexual relationships.