Today's Workshop: Breast Cancer Oncology

Today's Workshop: Breast Cancer Oncology Today’s Q&A workshop is with Kevin Kalinsky, MD, Assistant Professor of Medicine at the New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center. Dr. Kalinsky received his undergraduate B.A. from Emory University. He received his M.D. from the Medical University of South Carolina. He completed his Internal Medicine internship and residency at Tufts Medical Center. During his Hematology/Oncology fellowship at Tufts Medical Center, he received the Abby Shevitz Award for Young Physician’s in Hematology/Oncology. In Boston, he also trained as a breast cancer clinical research fellow at Massachusetts General Hospital. In addition, he completed an advanced oncology fellowship in breast cancer at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Dr. Kalinsky cares for patients diagnosed with breast cancer and teaches on the Breast Oncology service. Dr. Kalinsky’s research involves the development of early phase clinical trials to assess novel therapeutic agents in breast cancer. The goal of his research is to translate findings developed at the bench to clinical trials for study at the bedside. His work was selected for oral presentation at the Tumor Biology and Human Genetics session at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) 2009 meeting, for which he received an ASCO cancer foundation merit award. For more information on Dr. Kalinsky's research, here is a link to her pubmed publications. Ask Dr. Kalinsky questions today before 5PM EST from her profile page! Daily Answer by Cliff Hudis, MD, Chief of the Breast Cancer Medicine at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. What do you think about post menopausal women taking Tamoxifen instead of aromatase inhibitors because of too much joint pain while on those? There is a small numerical advantage, on average, associated with the use of aromatase inhibitors over tamoxifen. However, that does not mean that every single patient must use the AIs... (read more) Daily Answer by adam Brufsky, MD, Professor of medicine at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. For metastatic breast cancer patients, what process do you follow to develop a treatment plan? We find out if the cancer is positive for the estrogen receptor (we would use hormonal therapy) or Her2 (we would use herceptin and/or pertuzumab, perhaps with chemotherapy). We also look if there are bone metastases (we would use zometa or xgeva), and if there is a lot of disease in the lung or liver (we would favor chemo at that point)... (read more) Featured post by the Jody Schoger in Cure Today Should Breast Cancer in Young Women Be Treated Differently? Even after Ghecemy Lopez, 32, discovered a lump in her right breast and had a mammogram, she still couldn’t imagine she had cancer. She thought breast cancer struck older women, not someone her age. She got the same impression from the admitting clerk at her mammogram who asked, “Why are you here?” But young women, as Lopez and many other women discover each year, can and do get breast cancer...(read more) Featured post by Marie from Journeying Beyond Breast Cancer Establishing Your New Normal: Life After Cancer "Can my life be normal after breast cancer?" This was one of the search terms used to direct a reader to my blog recently. I was really struck by the question, and I want to reach out to whoever it is who is asking it and try to answer it as best I can. I know it is a question many of us have struggled with, so it would be wonderful if you could join me in reaching out to this person and sharing your own thoughts and experiences....(read more) http://link.talkabouthealth.com/view/4c7584abb61807701ee62c83v0gi.9/9b27641d