![Mayo Clinic home page [logo]](/images-global/mayologo.gif)
Give. Touch. Transform.
Share this site with others using one of these sharing tools.
To link to this article, paste this block of HTML code onto your webpage.
Guidelines for sites linking to mayoclinic.orgView syndicated health information from Mayo Clinic.
For many years, doctors have been using the vibrations of ultrasound to diagnose and even treat many conditions. Now research shows that the vibrations of a harp may help improve the condition of people nearing the end of life.
One in eight. Those are the odds that your mom, sister, wife or friend has of getting breast cancer in her lifetime. The risk goes way up if you have one of two known breast cancer genes.
Resource: Treatment of Breast Cancer
Can a pregnant woman get the lifesaving chemotherapy she needs without harming her unborn child? Doctors at Mayo Clinic have the answers.
Resource: Treatment of Breast Cancer
She was living the American dream. She was young, had a loving husband, two healthy sons, and a successful career as a doctor. But her dreams were shattered by breast cancer. And within weeks of her diagnosis an unbelievable chain of events happened. Her three sisters and mother were also all diagnosed with the disease.
Imagine standing in a room with eight female friends or family members. Statistics show that one of them will get breast cancer in her lifetime
Resource: Treatment of Breast Cancer
For thousands of years, practitioners of traditional Chinese medicine have used the herb ginseng to increase energy, endurance and brain power. Research shows that in many cases, the herb may help. Researchers at Mayo Clinic led a study with ginseng and found it may also help fight fatigue in cancer patients.
Resource: Cancer Treatment at Mayo Clinic
Thanks to modern imaging technology doctors are finding breast cancer earlier, while it's still curable. But most of the time, tumors are so small doctors can't feel them. They can't tell exactly where they are. But now, doctors at Mayo Clinic are using a new technique that allows them to pinpoint tumors more precisely, giving them a better chance at removing all of the cancer.
Doctors at Mayo Clinic did a study to find out if giving women information before they have a mammogram makes a difference in their experience.
Resource: Mammography Screening
It could be your mother, sister, aunt or best friend. One out of every seven women you know will be diagnosed with breast cancer. Thankfully, advances in early detection and treatment are helping many women beat breast cancer. But there's always the fear that the cancer could come back. Now for the first time, doctors at Mayo Clinic, working with doctors in Canada and in seven other countries, have proven that a new drug can cut a woman's risk of getting a recurrence of breast cancer almost in half.
Mayo Clinic doctors offer new breast reconstruction for patients needing surgery. Standard reconstructions involve removing part of an abdominal muscle and surrounding fat. Now, doctors can transfer only fat and vessels to construct the new breast. Patients recover more quickly and struggle less with problems relating to loss of stomach muscle.
Every day, doctors use ultrasound, CT scans and MRIs to see inside the body without making an incision. Those tests are great at showing size and structure, but they don't show important physical properties such as tissue stiffness, which, for example, is a sign of fibrosis in the liver. But researchers at Mayo Clinic have developed technology that uses sound waves to see if a patient's liver is harder than it should be — if it's developing fibrosis. It's called Magnetic Resonance Elastography, and it offers a noninvasive alternative to liver biopsy.
Resource: Treatment of Liver Disease
Maybe it's your mom, wife, sister or best friend. Chances are you know someone with breast cancer, because one out of eight women is diagnosed with the disease. It used to be your had no choice but to have your breast removed along with all the lymph nodes. Removal of those nodes is what causes most of the pain and complications. But now, a new, minimally invasive procedure allows doctors to find out whether or not your cancer has spread to the nodes, and shows them exactly which ones, if any, need to be removed. It makes what used to be a big operation much, much smaller.
Mayo Clinic is a site involved in the STAR trial for breast cancer. The main goal of this study is to find out which of two drugs (tamoxifen and raloxifene) is better for prevention and treatment of breast cancer. The 5-year trial is the largest breast cancer study to date, and researchers hope to recruit 19,000 women.
In the spring of 2006 the National Cancer Institute released initial results of the STAR trial for breast cancer prevention. The study compared the drug tamoxifen to another drug called raloxifene. Both reduced the incidence of invasive breast cancer by 50 percent in high-risk postmenopausal women.
Resource: Treatment of Breast Cancer
Ten years ago, 48,000 women -- mothers, wives, sisters -- died every year from breast cancer. Today, that number has dropped to 40,000. But it's still too high. That's why many women who are at high risk of getting breast cancer choose genetic testing.
Resource: Breast Cancer Risk Assessment
The words "you have breast cancer" are never easy to hear. They often mean the beginning of a treatment plan that can be very difficult. For some women, talking about their cancer with those who've been through it can help make the process easier. And doctors at Mayo Clinic say this communication may improve the quality of life of many women fighting this disease.
Resource: Treatment of Breast Cancer
.
