Triple Negative Breast Cancer Sisters Courage to Let Go

 Remembering someone special...
Heaven gained an angel.

Life's new beginning... 

We've lost too many young women to Triple Negative Breast Cancer this past year in our TNBC Sisters support group. This month in January, Three more sisters were called home to our Lord to be our sister angels. They are the real victors in their cancer battles, They fought hard with all they had, clinging to life. In the end, they had the courage to let go... let go of their suffering, the anxiety and their exhaustion as they're in transit to move on to their next life's journey in Heaven. Leaving behind their loved ones, children and friends is the hardest part of their journey, much harder than us saying good-bye to our sweet sisters. God Bless their families and may Michelle Streat, Marie Ashton and Melissa Gollnick rest peacefully now.



"Always in our thoughts - Forever in our hearts."

Michelle Oleson Streat, age 42
Passed January 13, 2013
from nearly 4½ yr. battle with TNBC

Marie Ashton, age 40
Passed January 28, 2013
from TNBC

Melissa Gollnick, Age 35
Passed January 31, 2013 
from TNBC, less than a month 
after recurrence diagnosis

http://www.phillyburbs.com/obituaries/burlington_county_times/melissa-a-gollnick/article_da179c2d-232e-5896-927d-ce6fbfd6885c.html
(Click link to obituary for Melissa Gollnick)

Jennifer Griffin's Survival Of Triple Negative Breast Cancer

 "I left nothing to chance. Triple-negative patients don’t have a tamoxifen or Herceptin^® (trastuzumab) to prevent a recurrence. What I have is exercise and a low-fat, near-vegan diet to keep a triple-negative recurrence at bay. I consider exercising 45 minutes my tamoxifen. I did Pilates and ran throughout chemo."



http://awomanshealth.com/2013/01/21/the-toughest-assignment-triple-negative-breast-cancer/ (Click on link for full story)

Vitamin D Holds Promise In Fighting Triple Negative Breast Cancer

BOTTOM LINE:

• Researchers have discovered a way in which one of the deadliest and most difficult to treat breast cancers allows tumor cells to grow unchecked and how these tumors resist treatment. Specifically, they found that BRCA1-deficient cells activate CTSL which leads to lower levels of the protein 53BP1 which, in turn, allows cancer cells to grow unchecked.
• In addition, they discovered the potential for a new therapy involving vitamin D, and identified biomarkers that can help identify which patients could benefit from this therapy.
• In the future, women with triple-negative breast cancer may benefit from a treatment that includes vitamin D. As with all laboratory research, vitamin D therapy will have to be studied in a clinical trial before doctors know how safe or effective it will be.
• Researchers’ next steps will be to study molecular mechanisms behind the activation of the degradation of 53BP1 by CTSL. In addition, preclinical studies with vitamin D and cathepsin inhibitors as single agents or in combination with different drugs are underway in mouse models of breast cancers.

http://www.slu.edu/x71202.xml (Click link for full story)

miR-708 Study Reveals Triple Negative Breast Cancer's Metastatic Path

"In the study, researchers set out to identify a miRNA that impacts metastasis without affecting primary tumor growth, as well as address its underlying molecular mechanisms and therapeutic potential against metastatic breast cancer. They discovered that a miRNA known as miR-708 is inhibited in metastatic triple negative breast cancer. They found that miR-708 acts as a metastatic tumor inhibitor, and when its function is restored, the tumors do not spread or form lethal macrometastases..."

http://weill.cornell.edu/news/releases/wcmc/wcmc_2013/01_14_13.shtml
(Click link for full story)

Triple Negative Breast Cancer Foundation's Interview With Lisa Carey, MD, Medical Director Of The Breast Center At The University Of North Carolina

News from the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium 2012

Lisa Carey, MD, Medical Director of the Breast Center at the University of North Carolina comments on this year's Symposium.Thursday, December 7, 2012
I wouldn't say that there is anything that has been presented this year that is going to have an immediate impact on how we treat triple negative breast cancer patients, today, but, overall, I see great promise for the future. The data related to deep genomic analysis are just exploding.
I know that is hard for patients who are waiting for a major step forward, but we aren't there yet in terms of the big phase III trial because the targets aren't clear at this point. In fact, triple negative breast cancer is going to lead the way in changing how we think about cancer and how we treat it. Right now, we usually start with the disease. You have stage IIb, HER2+ breast cancer, for example-and we treat that disease. With triple negative breast cancer, and probably many others as well, we need to start with the person, with the individual tumor. We need to sequence that tumor and identify the genes that are driving it. That's a significant change.
I think that in the next few years, we will have a panel of breast cancer genes and we will sequence every patient and treat what is there. If you look at the HER2 study that Ron Bose presented today or the new data on LAR TNBC, you can see that we have already identified some actionable targets. These may occur in small subsets of patients, but they are opening new doors to treatment that we will see in the near future.
The other thing I want to stress to today's patients is that we can often treat your disease successfully right now with conventional therapy. We get very good results for early TNBC. I think you can see that in what appears to be a negative study on the benefits, or lack thereof, of bevacizumab for adjuvant therapy. The overall survival rate exceeded the study's expectations, and I think that this reflects an improvement in treatment and outcomes for these patients. I have patients come to me who have read about TNBC on the web and think they are doomed, but the reality is that we have effective therapy for early TNBC and these patients often do very well.
There are many unmet needs for TNBC and a real need to develop these genomically based therapies, but I think there is progress now-and there will be much more in the future.

Christine Wilson for TNBC Foundation