In addition, the study was financed by the drug maker and several of the authors have worked for pharmaceutical companies. Bottom Line Use of oseltamivir after early symptoms of the flu develop may help reduce the severity of the disease. However, the drugs are costly and another option for many people is the flu vaccine each year. Breast Cancer Bone marrow testing may provide vital clues to the spread of cancer. The Study and Results When women are diagnosed with breast cancer, treatment options are generally determined by the size of the tumor and by looking at how far the cancer cells may have spread via the lymph system in the body.
Doctors customarily check lymph nodes to see how far the cancer has spread.
But this method is not foolproof. According to an editorial accompanying this study, as many as 40 percent of women with cancer cells in the lymph system survive 10 years and 20 to 30 percent of women who have cancer in the breast but not in the lymph system go on to see the malignancy spread to other parts of the body within 10 years. This study was designed to see if bone marrow could also be a tool to determine how the cancer is spreading and what type of treatment is required. German researchers took bone marrow samples from the hips of 552 women with breast cancer and 191 women with benign breast cysts or other growths in the breast who served as a control group. With special pathological tests, the researchers found malignant cells in the bone marrow in two of the women in the control group and 199 of the women with breast cancer.