Active clinical trials for "Breast Neoplasms"

In the field of cancer treatment, it is generally accepted that the enhancement of oxygen delivery to tumors can augment the effect of anti-cancer therapies. In the case of chemotherapy, this enhancement might lead to a larger amount of a given dose of treatment reaching the tumor and having an effect.

The purpose of this study is to determine if an avatar-based depression self-management intervention (eSMART-MH) once a week for the duration of the participant's radiation treatment will significantly reduce depressive symptoms. Investigators also seek to explore how women with breast cancer describe their mood using prompted and unprompted speech through electronic social media and interviews. Participants will be randomized into the eSMART-MH group or the theater testing (attention control) group. In addition to the assigned interventions, participants will be asked to complete questionnaires and interviews with the study staff.

Peripherally Inserted Central Catheter (PICC) and port-a-cath (PAC) are the most commonly medical devices used for the administration of chemotherapy. Placement of these devices via central venous access is sometimes responsible for complications. The incidence of these complications is correlated with the device holding time. A strategy of iterative PICC placement could significantly reduce these complications.

The purpose of this study is to test an intervention that uses home console video games to encourage increased physical activity among postmenopausal breast cancer survivors.

This is a pilot study evaluating the use of tumor derived exosomes as a marker for response to therapy in women receiving neoadjuvant chemotherapy for newly diagnosed breast cancer. Tumor derived exosome analysis may be a novel diagnostic and prognostic biosignature in breast cancer, which could prove to be a tool for earlier diagnosis, more effective treatments, and improved markers of response in order to increase survival rates.

The investigators have developed imaging protocols to monitor and predict breast cancer response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy, both prior to and as early as possible during the course of treatment. The efficacy and practicality of conventional imaging approaches in the neoadjuvant chemotherapy setting varies and identifies the need for alternate functional imaging strategies. Diffuse optical spectroscopic imaging is an experimental imaging method that allows patients to be followed from baseline through treatment and surgery with a cost-effective, bedside, handheld scanning probe. The researcher evaluates a harmonized diffuse optical spectroscopic imaging technology platform that has been standardized for neoadjuvant chemotherapy monitoring. Diffuse optical spectroscopic imaging is an academic research platform that is non-invasive. Studies will be performed in five clinical sites on approximately 60 neoadjuvant chemotherapy patients.

This randomized clinical trial studies cognitive enhancement program in improving cognitive function in breast cancer survivors. A cognitive enhancement program may help improve cognitive function in breast cancer survivors and may help doctors plan better treatment for cognitive decline.

The long-term objective of this research is to understand the molecular mechanisms of acquired endocrine resistance in breast cancer. Identifying these mechanisms is critical to the implementation of novel therapeutic strategies that can target and overcome altered gene networks involved in controlling breast cancer progression. While patients with tumors over expressing HER1, 2, or 3 have been shown to have reduced survival, patients with those tumors which overexpressed HER4 (erbB4) had increased survival (Witton 2003). This is a non-randomized, single-arm, proof of principle trial. Selected are patients with advanced-stage breast cancer whose tumors are ER+, tamoxifen refractory. Histologically proven diagnosis of recurrent or metastatic breast cancer is advanced cancer for which there is no treatment available which would have a reasonable chance of cure. Treatment failure is defined as tumor progression after chemotherapy and tamoxifen therapy. Patients will be given five 30mg doses of HDAC inhibitor (LBH) over a period of two weeks. A dose will be taken on Days 1,3,5,8 and 10. Patients will have a diagnostic tumor biopsy prior to drug administration and a diagnostic biopsy within 48 hours (2 days) of the last dose. Primary endpoints are measured by biopsy of palpable tumor with immunohistochemical staining for ERBB4. Secondary end points include the evaluation of cell death, apoptosis, with immunohistochemical staining for DNA breaks by TUNEL assay.

This research is being done to learn more about the risk of developing breast cancer by studying cells from both normal breast tissue and breast cancer tumor tissue. The goal is to study cells, genes, and gene products to help us to learn how to detect cancer in its earliest stages, and if this information may differ in patients with different ethnic backgrounds.

Breast-conserving surgery (BCS) is the traditional surgical treatment for early-stage breast cancer patients. There are evidences indicating that oncoplastic-BCS (displacement technique) could improve cosmetic outcomes and/or quality of life, and has similar oncological safety as traditional BCS does. However, there are no prospective trial comparing oncoplastic-BCS vs. traditional BCS in terms of cosmetic outcomes and oncological safety. In this study, the investigators are going to address this issue by assigning patients into traditional and oncoplastic-BCS group, based on their preference.