Breast Cancer: Origins, Detection, and Treatment

The control of breast cancer, a leading cause of cancer death in women, will depend ultimately on our understanding of the disease--its origin, and progression which in turn will permit the effective management of its treatment, its detection, and perhaps even its prevention. It is for a better understanding of this spectrum of biological processes crossing back and forth across scientific and clinical disciplines that this volume strives. Several broad topics have been addressed in organizing a large mass of work representing state of the art updates from many of the major breast cancer research groups around the world. The chapters in the first section speak to the factors affecting the growth and development of normal and malignant mammary epithelium. Special emphasis is placed on insights drawn from developmental biology, the cellular interactions that occur in the mammary gland during growth and differentiation; and the study of hormones and growth factors in the regulation of growth and differentiation of normal and malignant breast tissues. In the section on the biology of breast cancer, there is a characterization of relevant model systems for the study of breast cancer and their contribution to our understanding of preneoplasia and progression in mammary cancer. Included as well is the current status of major studies on the immunological aspects of breast cancer and the latest efforts in the development of markers for metastasis in breast cancer.

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Growth and Development of Normal and Malignant Mammary Epithelium.- 1. The Importance of Epithelial-Stromal Interaction in Mammary Gland Development.- 2. The Importance of Matrix Interactions and Tissue Topography for the Growth and Differentiation of Mammary Epithelial Cells In Vitro.- 3. Regulation of Mammary Epithelia Cell Proliferation: An In Vitro Mouse Mammary Epithelial Cell Model System.- 4. Polypeptide Growth Factors and the Growth of Mammary Epithelial Cells.- 5. Estrogen-Regulated Proteins and Autocrine Control of Cell Growth in Breast Cancer.- Biology of Breast Cancer.- 6. New Concepts and Approaches in the Analysis of Mammary Preneoplasia and Tumor Progression.- 7. Cell Culture Studies: A Perspective on Malignant Progression of Human Breast Cancer.- 8. Workshop on In Vitro Culture Systems.- 9. New Approaches to the Pathology of Breast Cancer; Can Immunohistochemistry Add New Information?.- 10. New Developments in Breast Cancer Immunology.- 11. Molecular Markers and the Manifestation of Metastasis.- Molecular Basis of Mammary Carcinogenesis.- 12. MuMTV Genotype, Protoneoplasia, and Tumor Progression.- 13. Structural and Biological Properties of the INT-1 Mammary Oncogene.- 14. The Role of Specific Regions for Proviral Integration in Mouse Mammary Tumor Virus (MMTV) Induced Tumors.- 15. Novel Endogenous Retroviral Genomes in Human Genomic DNA.- 16. Expression of the Human Harvey RAS Oncogene in Breast Cancer.- 17. The Search for Oncogenes in Breast Cancer.- 18. In Vitro Transformation of Human Breast Epithelial Cells.- 19. Of Mice and Women: Genetic Analysis of Breast Cancer in Families.- New Perspectives for Clinical Control of Human Breast Cancer.- 20. Dietary Fat and Mammary Carcinogenesis.- 21. Experimental Models for Mammary Carcinogenesis and for Breast Cancer Therapy.- 22. Tumour and Patient Variables as Indicators of Prognosis. The Silent Period.- 23. Basic and Clinical Aspects of the Structure and Function of Steroid Receptors.- 24. Endocrine Therapy in Primary and Advanced Breast Cancer.- 25. New Immunoreagents in Breast Cancer Diagnosis and Experimental Therapy: Report on the Workshop on Markers for Differentiation and Malignancy.- 26. Systemic Treatment and Survival in Carcinoma of the Breast.- 27. Biological Implications of Breast Cancer Surgery.