geoffrey modest medical blogs

  a recent article found that in patients with early breast cancer, statin use after the diagnosis of breast cancer was associated with lower all-cause and breast cancer-specific mortality particularly among patients with hormone receptor-positive subtypes: see breast cancer statin use helps JAMAonc2026 in dropbox, or doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2026.16375 Details : -- 7389 female patients with early invasive breast cancer (BC) in Finland were included in this retrospective population-based cohort study,  based on the Finnish national registries from 1995 and 2013     -- 2313 who were on statins after their BC diagnosis and outcomes were compared to 5076 who were not on statins -- patient characteristics, comparing the groups with breast cancer diagnosis who were on statins after BC diagnosis vs those women having no statins after BC diagnosis:     -- median age: 64 vs 58 yo     -- median follow-up time: 7.4 vs 6.0 years     -- deaths: ...

  A recent study found that women with breast cancer who were on cardiotoxic chemotherapy (anthracyclines and/or trastuzumab) had worse cardiac remodeling and function if they had subsequent exposure to air pollution (see  breast cancer air pollution dec cardiac function JAMA2025  in dropbox, or doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2025.52323)   Details : -- 580 female patients were included in this longitudinal prospective cohort study using data from the Cardiotoxicity of Cancer Therapy randomized clinical trial done at multiple sites     -- this trial enrolled women diagnosed with breast cancer between July 1, 2010, and November 1, 2018, from the Abramson Cancer Center at the University of Pennsylvania. All participants were initiating anthracyclines and/or trastuzumab     -- air pollution exposure assessment, which was done prior to chemotherapy: three-year average census tract–level concentrations of fine particulate matter with diameter of 2.5 μ...