Part Part 3: 5:
Women’s Women’s Cancers: Cancers:
New treatments depend on innovation Support is vital in, and after cancer treatment
In this series – this part explores the search for innovative new therapies – we explore crucial strides made against women’s In this series – this part researchers focuses on during the need support during, and are after, treatment – we involving explore crucial strides made cancers by City of Hope the for past year. The projects many and varied, the basics of fighting against women’s cancers by City of Hope researchers during the past year. The projects are many and varied, involving cancer, analyses of who’s at greatest risk, the search for surprising new therapies, the testing of new treatments and the folthe basics fighting and cancer, low-up withofsurvivors theiranalyses partners.of who’s at greatest risk, the search for surprising new therapies, the testing of new treatments, and the follow-up with survivors and their partners.
By Elizabeth Stewart Reprinted with permission from City of Hope
Photo: Older women with breast cancer have unique needs. City of Hope researchers are helping identify those needs.
HELPING WOMEN THRIVE DURING, AND AFTER, CANCER TREATMENT Research to help older women
50
Arti Hurria, M.D., director of City of Hope’s Cancer and Aging Research Program and associate professor of medical oncology, is collaborating with researchers from across the country on several important projects. In one ongoing nationwide collaborative study with more than 15 institutions, and funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Hurria is evaluating risk factors for toxicity in older women receiving cancer treatment.
Hurria was also awarded funds from the NIH to study the impact of cancer and cancer therapies on cognitive aging in survivors of breast cancer. Another recent study explored the impact of aromatase inhibitors (a common breast cancer therapy) on cognitive function in older women; that study was published by the journal Clinical Breast Cancer. Hurria’s leading-edge research is improving treatment standards for older breast cancer patients around the world.
The team’s goal is to develop questionnaires and blood tests that will give the physicians insight into a patient’s risk for side effects, so that care can be tailored accordingly. The Breast Cancer Research Foundation awarded Hurria and her team additional funds to enable them to understand the impact of breast cancer and its treatment on a patient’s physical function, comparing patients with breast cancer to an age-matched group who does not have breast cancer.
Tackling obesity after treatment
| NAWRB MAGAZINE
Research suggests that women treated with chemotherapy to overcome breast cancer develop metabolic syndrome at a faster rate. This term describes a dangerous group of health factors, such as large waist size, high blood pressure and high cholesterol, that increase risk for diabetes and heart disease, among other chronic conditions.