Woo-Sung Lim

We, the Korean Breast Cancer Society (KBCS), present the facts and the trends of breast cancer in Korea in 2014. Data on the total number of newly diagnosed patients was obtained from the Korea Central Cancer Registry database, other data were collected from the KBCS online registry database, and the overall survival data of patients were updated from Statistics Korea. A total of 21,484 female patients were newly diagnosed with breast cancer in 2014. The crude incidence rate and the age-standard

Psoriasis is a chronic inflammatory skin disease resulting from immune dysregulation. Regulatory T cells (Tregs) are important in the prevention of psoriasis. Traditionally, reactive oxygen species (ROS) are known to be implicated in the progression of inflammatory diseases, including psoriasis, but many recent studies suggested the protective role of ROS in immune-mediated diseases. In particular, severe cases of psoriasis vulgaris have been reported to be successfully treated by hyperbaric oxy

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Skin sparing mastectomy (SSM) has been demonstrated as an oncologically safe procedure for early breast cancer in several studies. But few studies concerned the safety of SSM for patients with locally advanced breast cancer; therefore, its safety for these patients is less clear. The purpose of this study is to examine the oncological safety of SSM followed by immediate reconstruction for locally advanced breast cancer. METHODS: We retrospectively analyzed 897 breast c

BACKGROUND: Following sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB), the axillary recurrence rate is very low although SLNB has a false-negative rate of 5-10%. In the ACOSOG Z0011 trial, non-sentinel positive-lymph nodes were found in more than 20% of the axillary dissection group; the SLNB only group did not have a higher axillary recurrence rate. These findings raised questions about the direct therapeutic effect of the SLNB. SLNB has post-surgical complications including lymphedema. Considering advances

BACKGROUND: The association between body mass index (BMI) at the time of breast cancer diagnosis and the prognosis of breast cancer patients remains controversial. Furthermore, the association between BMI and prognosis with respect to different breast cancer subtypes is not clearly defined. METHODS: We analyzed data from 41,021 invasive breast cancer patients between January 1988 and February 2008 from the Korean Breast Cancer Registry (KBCR) database. Overall survival (OS) and breast cancer-spe

BACKGROUND: Neoadjuvant endocrine therapy with an aromatase inhibitor has shown efficacy comparable to that of neoadjuvant chemotherapy in patients with postmenopausal breast cancer. Preclinical and clinical studies have shown that the antidiabetic drug metformin has anti-tumor activity. This prospective, multicenter, phase II randomized, placebo controlled trial was designed to evaluate the direct anti-tumor effect of metformin in non-diabetic postmenopausal women with estrogen-receptor (ER) po

Transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β) signaling plays a key role in progression and metastasis of HCC. This study was undertaken to gain the proof of concept of a small-molecule inhibitor of TGF-β type I receptor kinase, EW-7197 as a potent anti-cancer therapy for HCC. We identified tissue inhibitors of metalloproteinases-1 (TIMP-1) as one of the secreted proteins of hepatic stellate cells (HSCs) and a key mediator of TGF-β-mediated crosstalk between HSCs and HCC cells. TGF-β signaling led to inc

Distant relapse after chemotherapy is an important clinical issue for treating breast cancer patients and results from the development of cancer stem-like cells (CSCs) during chemotherapy. Here we report that blocking epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition (EMT) suppresses paclitaxel-induced CSCs properties by using a MDA-MB-231-xenografted mice model (in vivo), and breast cancer cell lines (in vitro). Paclitaxel, one of the cytotoxic taxane-drugs such as docetaxel, increases mesenchymal markers (

Our study demonstrates that BCS for multifocal breast cancer is oncologically safe in selected patients.

PURPOSE: To determine the updated long-term outcomes of the Addition of Ovarian Suppression to Tamoxifen in Young Women With Hormone-Sensitive Breast Cancer Who Remain Premenopausal or Regain Vaginal Bleeding After Chemotherapy (ASTRRA) trial. PATIENTS AND METHODS: This study is a post-trial follow-up of the ASTRRA trial, involving 1,483 premenopausal women younger than 45 years treated with definitive surgery after completing adjuvant or neoadjuvant chemotherapy for estrogen receptor-positive b

Indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase 1 (IDO1) is an immunosuppressive enzyme involved in tumor immune escape. Blockade of the IDO1 pathway is an emerging modality of cancer immunotherapy. Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) lacks established therapeutic targets and may be a good candidate for this novel immunotherapeutic agent. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the clinicopathologic characteristics of the IDO1-expressing TNBC subset. A tissue microarray was constructed from 200 patients with TNB

The microbiome involved in the human estrogen metabolism is known as the estrobolome. This study aimed to show that the estrobolome can be used in breast cancer treatment. We first analyzed the blood microbiome composition of healthy controls and patients with breast cancer. In particular, we investigated the bacteria producing β−glucuronidase and/or β−galactosidase, which are involved in estrogen metabolism in the human body. Staphylococcus species were more abundant in healthy controls than in