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Background • A cross-sectional study was carried out to determine the prevalence of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) use by breast cancer survivors. Methods. Adescriptive survey design was developed. Information on sociodemographic characteristics, cancer clinical treatment history, and use of CAM were obtained through a modified self-administered questionnaire from 116 Malay breast cancer survivors aged 21 to 67 years who were 2 years postdiagnosis and currently undergoing follow-up treatment at breast cancer clinics at Hospital Kuala Lumpur and Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia Medical Centre. Results • Data suggest that 64% of the participants were identified as CAM users; dietary supplements were the most common form used, followed by prayer and Malay traditional medicine. Within the wide range of dietary supplements, multivitamins were most often taken followed by spirulina, vitamin C, evening primrose oil, and herbal products. Contrary to other findings, the CAM users were found to be older, had secondary education levels, and were from middle-income households. However, there was no significant difference between CAM users and nonusers in this study. Family members played an important role as the main source of information along with doctors/health care providers, friends, and printed materials/mass media. The reasons participants gave for using CAM were mainly to assist in healing the body's inner strength, to cure cancer, and to reduce stress. Only half of the participants consulted with their physicians regarding the safety of CAM use. The participants began to use CAM while undergoing clinical treatments. Most of the participants used CAM for more than a year. About RM100 to RM149 (31.88 USD to 47.50 USD at press time) were spent monthly on CAM by 32% of the participants. The CAM use was found to be effective and beneficial for patients' disease states, and they were contented with the usage of the CAM therapies. Multivariate analysis revealed that the decision to use or not to use CAM was not dependent on sociodemographic background or cancer clinical treatment history. Conclusions • CAM was commonly used by breast cancer survivors as a coping mechanism to battle the disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Fat intake has been shown to play a role in the etiology of breast cancer, but the findings have been inconsistent., Objective: To assess the association of premenopausal and postmenopausal breast cancer risk with fat and fat subtypes intake., Methodology: This is a population based case-control study conducted in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia from January 2006 to December 2007. Food intake pattern was collected from 382 breast cancer patients and 382 control group via an interviewer-administered food frequency questionnaire. Logistic regression was used to compute odds ratios (OR) with 95% confidence intervals (CI) and a broad range of potential confounders was included in analysis., Results: This study showed that both premenopausal and postmenopausal breast cancer risk did not increase significantly with greater intake of total fat [quartile (Q) 4 versus Q1 OR=0.76, 95% CI, 0.23-2.45 and OR=1.36, 95% CI, 0.30-3.12], saturated fat (ORQ4 to Q1=1.43, 95% CI, 0.51-3.98 and ORQ4 to Q1=1.75, 95% CI, 0.62-3.40), monounsaturated fat (ORQ4 to Q1=0.96, 95% CI, 0.34-1.72 and ORQ4 to Q1=1.74, 95% CI, 0.22-2.79), polyunsaturated fat (ORQ4 to Q1=0.64, 95% CI, 0.23-1.73 and ORQ4 to Q1=0.74, 95% CI, 0.39-1.81), n-3 polyunsaturated fat (ORQ4 to Q1=1.10, 95% CI, 0.49-2.48 and ORQ4 to Q1=0.78, 95% CI, 0.28-2.18), n-6 polyunsaturated fat (ORQ4 to Q1=0.67, 95% CI, 0.24-1.84 and ORQ4 to Q1=0.71, 95% CI, 0.29-1.04) or energy intake (ORQ4 to Q1=1.52, 95% CI, 0.68-3.38 and ORQ4 to Q1=2.21, 95% CI, 0.93-3.36)., Conclusion: Total fat and fat subtypes were not associated with pre- and postmenopausal breast cancer risk after controlling for age, other breast cancer risk factors and energy intake. Despite the lack of association, the effects of total fat and fat subtypes intake during premenopausal years towards postmenopausal breast cancer risk still warrant investigation.

The GATA3 gene is a potential tumour marker and putative tumour suppressor gene in breast cancer. Its expression is associated with better prognosis and disease free survival in breast cancer patients. We aimed to evaluate GATA3 transcriptome expression and mutation in breast carcinomas and correlate its expression with oestrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR), lymph node (LN) status, tumour grade and c-erbB-2 expression. Twenty-two breast infiltrating ductal carcinomas and paired normal tissues were used in Branch DNA assay to detect GATA3 mRNA expression. Normalized data for GATA3 mRNA expression were grouped according to the ER, PR and LN status, tumour grade and c-erbB-2 expression of the tumours. Statistical significance was tested using t-test and ANOVA at 95% confidence interval level. Mutational analysis of GATA3 was performed by direct sequencing of the coding regions of GATA3 mRNA. Our findings showed that GATA3 gene were over-expressed and under-expressed by > 2 fold change in 12 and 4 tested samples, respectively. Eighty per cent of ER positive breast carcinomas were GATA3 positive. There was a statistically significant correlation between GATA3 expression and ER at 95% confidence interval level between the study groups. On the contrary, GATA3 expression was not statistically significant with PR, LN, tumour grade and c-erbB-2 expression in our study. In addition, we observed that there was no mutation in mRNA coding region in 16 breast carcinomas that showed GATA3 differential gene expression. Our preliminary results suggested that GATA3 is linked to the ER. This scenario suggests that GATA3 may play a crucial role in oestrogen receptor positive breast cancer patients. Whether GATA3 expression is involved in regulating tumour cell growth in oestrogen responsive breast cancer is a key question that remains to be answered.