Active clinical trials for "Breast Neoplasms"

This randomized pilot clinical trial studies a nanoemulsion formulation of curcumin in reducing inflammatory changes in breast tissue in obese women at high risk for breast cancer. Curcumin may reduce inflammation in breast tissue and fat. This may affect the risk of developing breast cancer.

Overweight and obesity are well established risk factors for breast cancer that develop after menopause. The increased postmenopausal breast cancer risk in women who are overweight or obese is likely to be attributed to multiple metabolic disturbances. Metformin is a commonly used medication in diabetics to stabilize blood sugar. Association studies and laboratory studies have shown its potential to reduce the risk for development of cancer, including breast cancer. Recent pilot clinical studies in breast cancer patients suggest that metformin may only be effective in overweight or obese women with metabolic disturbances. We propose to conduct a clinical study of metformin in overweight or obese premenopausal women with metabolic disturbances. Study participants will be randomly assigned to receive metformin or placebo for 12 months. The study will evaluate whether metformin can result in favorable changes in risk features that have been associated with increased breast cancer risk. The risk features that will be examined in our study include breast density, certain proteins and hormones, products of body metabolism, and body weight and composition. The study should help determine the potential breast cancer preventive activity of metformin in a growing population at risk for multiple diseases.

Overview: This is a 6 month, two-arm randomized clinical trial using comparing exergaming to a control group. The investigators will randomize Black sedentary overweight/obese women to Wii Fit exercise (n=50) or the control arm (n=50). Women in the Wii Fit exercise group will come to the Georgetown community-based exercise facility 3 days/wk. The control group will be asked to maintain their current daily activities and not to exercise for the duration of the study. Based on the investigators previous findings that women who engage in 75-150 mins/wk of brisk walking had an 18% decreased risk of breast cancer, the investigators will target this level of activity in the investigators intervention arm. Also, this 150 min/week of physical activity meets the current recommendations of the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) and the US Department of Health and Human Services for healthy individuals and is in line with recommendation of the American Cancer Society (ACS) for cancer prevention.

This is a pilot study evaluating the effect of hydroxytyrosol, a component of olive oil, on mammographic density in women at high risk of developing breast cancer.

This research is designed to investigate whether the addition of fulvestrant 500mg to anastrozole is better than anastrozole alone as first-line endocrine therapy for advanced breast cancer.

The purpose of this study is to determine the optimal time to use the Tumor RNA Disruption Assay (RDA) as a predictor of pathological complete response (pCR) in patients with breast cancer treated with neoadjuvant chemotherapy. This is important because the earlier non-responders are identified, the greater is the impact of reducing side effects of ineffective treatments. The study hypothesis is that the RDA score will accurately predict for tumor response after one cycle of chemotherapy.

The goal of this clinical research study is to learn if using "gene signatures" can be an effective way to decide the best treatment for breast cancer patients. Gene signatures may be able to help researchers predict who will respond to chemotherapy given before surgery.

The investigators propose to conduct a clinical trial of neoadjuvant treatment utilizing chemotherapy formulations with favorable toxicity profiles: weekly doxorubicin, PPX and capecitabine. It is expected this combination will at least maintain the efficacy of a traditional chemotherapy regimen but will be associated with less toxicity, particularly nausea, vomiting and alopecia. In order to accomplish this the investigators have designed a chemotherapy regimen whose components (or administration schedule) are associated with minimal or no alopecia and are also considered to have low emetogenic potential. In an attempt to improve the efficacy of the regimen the investigators plan to study an alternate schedule of cyclophosphamide and methotrexate administration (metronomic chemotherapy) which appears to inhibit angiogenesis and therefore enhance the activity of conventional cytotoxic chemotherapy administered concurrently. In this trial the investigators aim to determine the clinical and pathologic response rate of 12 weeks of doxorubicin followed by 4 cycles of PPX and capecitabine. Metronomic chemotherapy with cyclophosphamide and methotrexate will be administered during the 24 weeks of chemotherapy.

This study is designed to gather information on how the prescription drug Lovaza™ which contains omega-3 fatty acids, affects blood and tissue risk biomarkers for breast cancer. This drug is currently approved by the FDA for reducing blood levels of triglycerides.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the overall response rate of Genexol-PM compared with paclitaxel (cremophor-based paclitaxel) as palliative chemotherapy in anthracycline-pretreated patients with metastatic breast cancer.