Walking for seven hours a week may help lower breast cancer risk. The more exercise women get, the lower their risk drops.

Taking calcium-channel blockers long-term to control high blood pressure may increase the risk of breast cancer. Other types of blood pressure drugs don't seem to have the same effect.

Radiation, on its own or coupled with other treatments, has helped many women survive breast cancer. Yet radiation therapy can cause the appearance of heart disease years later. New research published in JAMA Internal Medicine estimates that the increased lifetime risk for a heart attack or other major heart event in women who’ve had breast cancer radiation is between 0.5% and 3.5%. The risk is highest among women who get radiation to the left breast—understandable, since that’s where the heart is located. The heart effects of radiation begin emerging as soon as five years after treatment. However, future heart risk should not be the reason to abandon this important component of treatment. Cancer experts are doing more and more to minimize the amount of radiation the heart receives.

Women with early-stage HER-2 positive breast cancer may benefit by taking a drug called pertuzumab (Perjeta) before undergoing breast surgery. By shrinking breast tumors before surgery, the drug is expected to lead to less invasive operations and a greater chance of a cure. Perjeta was initially approved in 2012 to treat late-stage breast cancer that had spread to other parts of the body. Yesterday the FDA approved it for pre-surgery use. Keep in mind that the use of Perjeta before surgery has only been approved for women with HER-2 positive breast cancer. In this form of the disease, which affects accounts for one in five cases of breast cancer, the malignant cells overproduce something called human epidermal growth factor receptor-2. Such tumor cells tend to be more aggressive than other types of breast cancer cells.

How do you make sense of conflicting mammography guidelines?

How often do you need to get a mammogram, and at what age should you stop having this test? If you follow the American Cancer Society's guidelines, you'll have yearly mammograms starting at age 40 and continuing for as long as you're in good health. The National Cancer Institute recommends mammograms every one to two years starting at age 40. But in 2009, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF)—a panel of health experts that reviews screening tests like mammography—released new recommendations, which advise starting mammograms only at age 50, then having the test every other year and stopping at age 74.

New guidelines advise postmenopausal women at increased risk for estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer to talk to their doctor about taking exemestane (Aromasin) as part of a preventive strategy.

Computed radiography (CR), a type of mammogram that records breast images on a cassette and then transfers them to a computer, is not as effective at picking up breast cancer as digital direct radiography (DR), a study finds.

Despite recent recommendations against annual breast cancer screenings, women continue to have mammograms each year. Researchers suggest this is because providers disagree with the recommendations.

Research We're Watching

Radiation for breast cancer linked to heart problems

Radiation therapy is an effective treatment for breast cancer, but concerns have been raised that the radiation exposure women receive during this therapy might put them at greater risk for heart disease, especially because the radiation is delivered so close to the heart.

Researchers in Europe investigated this connection in more than 2,000 women who underwent radiation treatment for breast cancer between 1958 and 2001. The study, which was published March 14 in The New England Journal of Medicine, found that women's risk of ischemic heart disease (caused by reduced blood flow to the heart) began rising five years after their radiation treatment, and it continued for 20 or more years after this therapy. The more radiation the women received, the greater their heart risks—especially if they had radiation to the left breast, which is closest to the heart. The authors say today's radiation treatments deliver lower doses than in the past, and because their study included women treated more than 10 years ago, they can't know for sure how more current treatments might affect women's heart disease risk. Regardless, Dr. ­Javid Moslehi of Harvard-affiliated Dana-Farber Cancer Institute stressed in an accompanying editorial that it's important for cancer and heart doctors to work together when caring for women who receive radiation for breast cancer.

Angelina Jolie revealed yesterday in a New York Times op-ed article that she underwent a double mastectomy even though she doesn’t have breast cancer. She did that because she carries a gene (BRCA1) that substantially increases her chances of developing the disease. Her mother’s 10-year losing battle with ovarian cancer helped guide her decision. Women who carry BRCA1, BRCA2, or who have at least two close relatives—a mother, sister, or daughter—who have had breast or ovarian cancer are candidates for prophylactic mastectomy. Some women who develop cancer in one breast often have both breasts removed to avoid a recurrence of the disease. Taking time to make the decision, and talking it over with a trusted and knowledgeable expert, is an important part of the decision-making process. Having as much information as possible before choosing prophylactic mastectomy is as empowering as making the decision itself.