THURSDAY, June 26 (HealthDay News) -- Women with metastatic breast cancer who developed an immune response to an investigational vaccine lived twice as long as those who didn't have an immune response, new research shows.

"If you were an immune responder, you had double the survival of a non-responder," said study author Dr. Susan Domchek, an associate professor of medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

WEDNESDAY, June 11 (HealthDay News) -- The accuracy of mammography screening is affected by certain characteristics of the facility where it's performed, a U.S. study finds.

Researchers looked at data from 44 sites that performed 484,463 screening mammograms on 237,669 women between 1992 and 2002.

Of those women, 2,686 were diagnosed with breast cancer. On average, breast cancer was identified when it was present (sensitivity) in 79.6 percent of breast cancer cases that occurred within one year. Mammograms were correctly identified as cancer-free (specificity) 90.2 percent of the time.

WEDNESDAY, June 11 (HealthDay News) -- A drug already approved to reduce the risk of breast cancer in high-risk women also seems to cut the risk for other women.

A new analysis finds that those who took raloxifene (Evista) regularly over a number of years were less likely to develop invasive estrogen-receptor (ER) positive breast cancer, compared with women who did not take the drug.

Raloxifene did not, however, cut the risk for noninvasive breast cancer or invasive ER-negative cancers.

By TONI BRONZO
ABC News Medical Unit

For Ellyn Davidson, there was only one thing scarier than being diagnosed with breast cancer. It was the prospect that her 8-year-old daughter would one day receive the very same devastating news.

"At the time of my diagnosis, she definitely was one of my first thoughts, but it never occurred to me that I could be carrying the mutated BRCA gene," she recalls.

Read full story

SUNDAY, June 1 (HealthDay News) -- People who survived Hodgkin disease when they were children or adolescents are much more likely than other people to develop certain cancers, says a new study.

Hodgkin disease (HD), a cancer of the lymph nodes, has a cure rate of more than 90 percent, but survivors may be at future risk of developing second cancers other than HD, according to background information in the study.

FRIDAY, May 16 (HealthDay News) -- A simple blood test to check levels of circulating tumor cells can help doctors more accurately assess how well treatments are working in women with metastatic breast cancer, according to a Georgetown University Medical Center study.

FRIDAY, May 16 (HealthDay News) -- Women with breast cancer who have a vitamin D deficiency at the time of diagnosis are more likely to have a recurrence or to die from their disease, a new study shows.

Surprisingly, the researchers also found that only 24 percent of the patients had adequate levels of vitamin D when they were diagnosed.

By Amanda Gardner
EmpowHer's HealthDay Reporter

FRIDAY, May 16 (HealthDay News) -- After years of declining rates, the number of mastectomies performed on women with breast cancer is on the rise again, the Mayo Clinic now reports.

The increase coincided with heavier usage of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) before surgery, according to the authors, who were expected to present their findings May 31 at the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) annual meeting, in Chicago.

By Serena Gordon
EmpowHer's HealthDay Reporter

TUESDAY, May 13 (HealthDay News) -- While undoubtedly lifesaving for many women, mammography is far from perfect. But, undergoing breast ultrasound in addition to standard mammography can find more cancers in high-risk women, particularly those with dense breast tissue, a new study found.

By Amanda Gardner
EmpowHer's HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, April 30 (HealthDay News) -- Cancer survivors who eat more fruits and vegetables, stay physically active and avoid tobacco have a higher quality of life than those who don't do these things.

The bad news is that many cancer survivors aren't eating right and aren't exercising enough, although a good three-quarters do follow recommendations not to light up.