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The research team discovered that women whose atypia tissue expressed COX-2 enzymes were more likely to develop breast cancer subsequently, and that the more the enzyme expressed, the higher the risk.

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ALTTO (Adjuvant Lapatinib and/or Trastuzumab Treatment Optimization study)
"There have been major improvements in the management of patients with early breast cancer in the last few years, so this new study builds on this knowledge and sets an example of the new era: good science, good worldwide collaboration," said Edith Perez, M.D., an oncologist in the North Central Cancer Treatment Group (NCCTG) at Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Fla., who will lead the study for TBCI.
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Agreement strengthens relationship and spawns new scientific collaborations
"TGen takes seriously our commitment to work toward helping patients with cancer and other disorders. This announcement is another mechanism allowing TGen and Mayo faculty to work bi-directionally in a more seamless fashion," said Jeffrey Trent, Ph.D., TGen's president and scientific director.
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Named professorships at Mayo Clinic represent the highest academic distinction for a faculty member.
Sandra Gendler, Ph.D., was named the David F. and Margaret T. Grohne Research Professor in Therapeutics for Cancer Research.

Richard Vile, Ph.D., a consultant in the Department of Molecular Medicine and Department of Immunology at Mayo Clinic Rochester, was honored with The Richard M. Schulze Family Foundation Professorship.
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Research into the B7 molecules has been a "family affair" at Mayo. Many Mayo immunologists have joined together to tackle various aspects of their function and behavior and have discovered how they function.

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Mayo Clinic logo

New feature on MayoClinic.com summarizes factors considered in breast cancer staging

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Sound waves may help early detection of heart failure caused by Trastuzumab
"Breast cancer is the second most common form of cancer in women, and the leading cause of death," says Bijoy K. Khandheria, M.D., chair, Mayo Clinic Cardiovascular Services, researcher and co-investigator of the study. "Anticancer drugs like Trastuzumab have substantial benefits, but in some patients the anticancer drug cross-reacts with the heart muscle. Therefore, methods to detect and halt heart muscle damage is therefore urgently required."
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Medical Edge Newspaper
Dear Mayo Clinic:
What's my best defense against breast cancer?

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Discovery's Edge
"When we examined human breast tissue we were blown away by how dramatic and obvious the centrosome abnormalities were in the tumors," says Jeffrey Salisbury, Ph.D. "And that was literally on day one."
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Publication: Mayo Clinic Proceedings -- Jan. 2008

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Publication: Mayo Clinic Proceedings -- Jan. 2008

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Medical Edge Television
Every day up to two-thousand women have hysterectomies. Many of these women also choose to have their ovaries taken out at the same time to remove their risk of ovarian cancer. But for younger women who are not at high risk for ovarian cancer, doctors at Mayo Clinic are saying, "not so fast." Two studies show that keeping your ovaries until after menopause may protect you from memory problems and Parkinson's disease.
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News from Jacksonville, Fla.
Several programs exist nationally to provide free breast cancer screening mammograms to underserved women, but there is no unified system for providing diagnostic services when abnormalities on the mammograms are detected.

Mayo Clinic has been working on some options.
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breast cancer

Presented at the 2007 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium
"We need to be aware that this kind of cancer is high risk and we should do all that we can to prevent brain metastasis," says Stephanie Hines, M.D. "For women with triple negative breast cancer, improvements in outcome will likely come when new treatments for this type of cancer are successfully developed."
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breast cancer

Presented at the 2007 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium
"It appears that biology and not only size matters when it comes to selecting therapy for small, invasive tumors," says the study's lead researcher, Surabhi Amar, M.D., a fellow in Hematology/Oncology at Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville.

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NCCTG star

More results from North Central Cancer Treatment Group's clinical trial N9831

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Medical Edge Newspaper
Endometrial cancer is the fourth most common cancer in American women after breast, lung and colon cancers. When discovered early, endometrial cancer usually can be successfully treated.
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Publication: Mayo Clinic Proceedings -- Dec. 2007

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breast cancer

The study, which was done in mouse models, is featured on the cover of the November issue of Cancer Research.
There are few effective treatments for advanced breast cancer, but in this case, the study authors feel that 2ME2 has the potential to improve the prognosis of patients with advanced breast cancer.
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breast cancer

Presented at the 2007 meeting of the American Society for Therapeutic Radiation and Oncology (ASTRO)

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breast cancer image

Presented at the annual meeting of the American Society for Therapeutic Radiation and Oncology (ASTRO)
"This tells us that the standard course of therapy isn't that bad in terms of its exposure to normal tissue, but also that, sometimes, partial breast irradiation may not spare as much normal tissue as we hope," says the study's lead investigator, Laura Vallow, M.D.

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Presented at the annual meeting of the American Society for Therapeutic Radiation and Oncology (ASTRO)
"Most of these patients don't have other effective treatment options, because surgery is not possible if there are multiple tumors in their liver," says the study's lead investigator, Laura Vallow, M.D. "But with this radiotherapy, no new tumors developed in patients who responded and we find this to be very encouraging."
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ovarian cancer

Phase 2 Consortium clinical trial shows promising results
Presented by the study's primary investigator, Keith Bible, M.D., Ph.D., at the Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics International Conference, a jointly-sponsored symposium of the American Association for Cancer Research, National Cancer Institute and the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer.

"We are encouraged by the interim results of this trial," says Dr. Bible, a medical oncologist and researcher at Mayo Clinic. "Platinum-resistant ovarian cancer responds poorly to traditional therapies, and we've been working toward developing more effective treatments for this disease. This combination looks very promising."


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"We hope to find more effective nonhormonal options to assist women, and flaxseed looks promising," says Sandhya Pruthi, M.D., Mayo Clinic breast health specialist and the study's primary investigator.
Dr. Pruthi's team chose to research flaxseed because it is a phytoestrogen (plant-based estrogen source). Flaxseed contains lignans and omega-3 fatty acids. Lignans are antioxidants with weak estrogen-emulating characteristics, and have some anti-cancer effects. Flaxseed also appears to have anti-estrogen properties and has been shown in some recent research trials to decrease breast cancer risk.
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Medical Edge Radio
For more information on inflammatory breast cancer treatment at Mayo Clinic, visit http://www.mayoclinic.org/inflammatory-breast-cancer
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breast cancer

Women with at least three sites of cellular atypia in breast tissue are nearly eight times more likely than average women to develop breast cancer, according to findings of a Mayo Clinic Cancer Center led study of women with atypical hyperplasia.
"With the ability to stratify the risk of breast cancer in women with atypia, we can have more informed discussions with our patients regarding their personal risk," says Amy Degnim, M.D., a Mayo Clinic surgeon and study author. "This will help us to have individualized discussions regarding how aggressively to pursue risk-reduction treatments."
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Mayo Clinic Proceedings

Publication: Mayo Clinic Proceedings -- June 2007

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breast cancer patient

Research Lost in Hurricane Katrina. Researchers Return to Mayo to Start Again
Cancer vaccines are still considered experimental and so far, research results have been mixed. New studies, such as this, demonstrate that researchers are closing in on designing viable cancer vaccines, the investigators say.

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breast cancer

Collaborative approach uses lapatinib (Tykerb) and trastuzumab (Herceptin), tests heart function

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mammogram

A redesign of the primary care practice to enable appointment secretaries to schedule preventive services was a key to the program's success.
"Not everyone needs to see a doctor every year, but they still should get the appropriate preventive care and screenings," explains Robert Stroebel, M.D., chair, Division of Primary Care Internal Medicine at Mayo Clinic and the study's senior author. "We were pleasantly surprised at how much we could increase mammography percentages through this new system."
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women's cancer - painting

Medical Edge Newspaper Column
DEAR MAYO CLINIC: My 23-year-old daughter has had a Pap test that demonstrated abnormal cells. She was diagnosed with dysplasia, caused by HPV. Is this a serious condition? What tests, studies, diagnoses or medications should we be asking about at our next doctor's appointment? -- Chicago
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breast cancer patient & coworker

Breast cancer survivors credit collaboration for successful treatment
"I felt they really respected me," said Lynn Van Wagenen. "Everyone collaborates on your care. It's a complete team approach, and right at the center of that collaboration is the patient."

Mayo Clinic Checkup / January 2007 (Vol. 14, No. 1)
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A New Gamma Camera Technique for the Detection of Small Breast Tumors
A diagnostic device that resembles a mammography unit can detect breast tumors as tiny as one-fifth of an inch in diameter, which may make it a valuable complementary imaging technique to mammography, say researchers at Mayo Clinic, who helped develop the technology along with industry collaborators Gamma Medica and GE Healthcare.

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Mayo Clinic's ability to find and diagnose breast cancer has increased with the addition of two new digital mammography machines, the most cutting-edge screening and detection technology available for some women.
An advance in the field of screening and diagnosing breast cancer, digital mammograms are proving to have their niche. "A large trial published in 2005 found digital mammograms have increased accuracy in three categories of patients," says Elizabeth DePeri, M.D., a radiologist in Mayo's Breast Clinic.
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Researcher-clinician offers advice for navigating the new world of molecular treatment
The news that the world's first targeted therapy, trastuzumab (Herceptin), is now available for many women with early-stage HER2-positive breast cancer "highlights a truly significant advance in the management of breast cancer," says Edith Perez, M.D., director of Mayo Clinic's Breast Clinic in Jacksonville, Fla.
Dr. Perez, who led one of the four pivotal studies that proved the drug's benefit in early-stage disease, says the approval of trastuzumab by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Nov. 16 for this new use now allows physicians to manage an aggressive type of breast cancer much more effectively than just a few years ago.

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Normal aging of breast tissue lessens breast cancer risk, reports a new study by Mayo Clinic Cancer Center researchers published in the Nov. 15, 2006, issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

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Medical Edge Television
There is a type of breast cancer that often doesn't show up on mammograms. It's called inflammatory breast cancer. IBC can be stopped if you know the signs and symptoms.
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virus

Seeking a cure for glioblastoma multiforme, other deadly cancers
Mayo Clinic is unique in its pursuit of oncolytic measles vaccine strains for cancer treatment, and the research has grown from the most basic laboratory science to the sophisticated therapy being tested today in several tumor types, including glioblastoma multiforme, recurrent ovarian cancer and multiple myeloma.


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surgery

Researchers at Mayo Clinic Cancer Center have shown that instituting a standardized protocol for surgical management of endometrial cancer results in improved surgical staging and increased detection of paraaortic nodal disease.
"Without guidelines, if a surgeon is not sure how much surgery or treatment is necessary, he or she may not proceed as aggressively as might be warranted, resulting in less than satisfactory results for the patient," says Karl Podratz, M.D., Ph.D., Mayo Clinic gynecologic oncologist and lead investigator of the study. "We wanted to eliminate the uncertainty, thus improving the overall quality of our patient care."

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butterfly quilt

This annual education event brings cutting-edge research and the clinicians and scientists who study it to those who are interested in women's cancers.

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"These findings reopen the debate about preventive removal of the ovaries for younger women," says Bobbie Gostout, M.D., Mayo Clinic gynecologic surgeon.
Death rates rise when women under 45 years old undergo bilateral ovariectomy -- surgical removal of both ovaries -- and do not receive proper hormone replacement therapy, according to a new Mayo Clinic study to be published in the October 1, 2006, issue of The Lancet Oncology.
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Publication: Journal of Clinical Oncology -- Aug. 1, 2006
A companion study to the National Cancer Institute of Canada Clinical Trials Group study MA.17
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mammography patient

Medical Edge Television
Doctors at Mayo Clinic did a study to find out if giving women information before they have a mammogram makes a difference in their experience.
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breast cancer genetics - patient

Medical Edge Television
One in eight. Those are the odds that your mom, sister, wife or friend has of getting breast cancer in her lifetime. The risk goes way up if you have one of two known breast cancer genes.
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Medical Edge Newspaper
DEAR MAYO CLINIC:
I have been experiencing changes in my left breast, some pain and thickening that is new. My mammogram was normal. I told my gynecologist about my situation. She said any irregularity is not normal, and I should see a surgeon. What does breast asymmetry like this mean, especially when the mammogram is normal? Should I seek further opinions? -- Lisle, Ill.
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The Inaugural Run of the Nation's Only Marathon Designed to Raise Funds to Fight Breast Cancer will be held in Jacksonville Beach, Fla. February 2008.
"Mayo Clinic is pleased to be a part of the 26.2 with Donna and we're excited about the national awareness and funds this marathon will raise to help us in the fight against breast cancer," said Dr. Edith Perez, professor of medicine with the Mayo Clinic.

Each year approximately 200,000 women in the United States are diagnosed with breast cancer, and the disease causes about 40,000 deaths annually. Mayo Clinic is leading the fight against breast cancer with researchers like Dr. Perez, author of a clinical trial that produced what is arguably the most significant breakthrough in breast cancer in 30 years. The trial resulted in a 52 percent decrease in the recurrence of breast cancer in those participating.

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NCCTG

Publication: Journal of Clinical Oncology -- June 20, 2006
North Central Cancer Treatment Group clinical trial
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"In this study we've been able to identify a protein whose expression was associated with the effectiveness of cisplatin and paclitaxel for ovarian and gastric cancer treatment."
Mayo Clinic researchers, in collaboration with several international teams, report that individuals respond better to cisplatin and paclitaxel chemotherapy treatments for ovarian or gastric cancer, specifically stomach cancer, when they have higher levels of the HtrA1 protein -- indicating a potential clinical use of this biomarker to predict treatment response.
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Mayo Clinic Proceedings

Publication: Mayo Clinic Proceedings -- June 2006
The results suggest that providing women scheduled for screening mammograms with physician-approved educational material before their appointment significantly increases knowledge about screening mammography, risks and benefits, and possible follow-up.

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North Central Cancer Treatment Group Study
Patients who receive trastuzumab at the same time as post-chemotherapy radiation treatments for HER-2 positive breast cancer have no more risk for major side effects or complications than those who do not receive the drug.
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breast health

Medical Edge Newspapaer
DEAR MAYO CLINIC:
Can you provide an update on the recent breast cancer prevention research that was in the news? -- Thornhill, Ontario, Canada
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ovarian cancer

Medical Edge Newspaper
DEAR MAYO CLINIC:
I am a 49-year-old woman with ovarian cancer that has spread to the liver. I have confidence in my local doctors -- they've given me chemotherapy and my maximum dose of radiation -- but I'm concerned about their possibly limited resources here in rural Indiana. Are there new treatment options I might be missing? -- Indiana

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Study of Tamoxifen and Raloxifene (STAR) Released: Osteoporosis Drug Raloxifene Shown to be as Effective as Tamoxifen in Preventing Invasive Breast Cancer
"The initial results from the STAR trial are truly exciting for the future of breast cancer prevention," said Sandhya Pruthi, M.D. the principal investigator at Mayo Clinic Rochester and director of the Mayo Breast Diagnostic Clinic.
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ovaries

Risk is especially increased if a woman has her ovaries removed at a young age.
"Like any medical or surgical decision, there is a trade between risk and benefit," says Dr. Rocca. "Our findings are important for situations where the removal of the ovaries is elective -- that is, conducted to reduce the risk of ovarian cancer."
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Now that this signal has been identified, new strategies can be generated for enhancing the ability of the immune system to kill tumor cells in patients with cancer.
"Because NK cells can communicate different messages -- one that serves health by clearing tumors and viruses and one that serves disease by blocking the response to cancer -- understanding which signals result in effective tumor clearance is a high priority for those of us fighting cancer," explains Paul Leibson, M.D., Ph.D., the Mayo Clinic immunologist and pediatrician who led the study.
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Mayo Clinic researchers have discovered clues about new molecular partnerships involving a key protein that naturally guards against cancer because it promotes repair of damaged DNA.
Research shows that loss of p53 is directly related to cancer. People born without enough p53 function get spontaneous cancers. In about half of all cancers, the two genes that give the instructions for making p53 (each person gets one gene from each parent) are missing or shut off. This suggests that loss of p53 function is a common event in the origin of many different kinds of cancer. Therefore, an appealing research strategy is to devise ways to restore or protect p53 function. Discovering all the ways p53 gets turned on is an important first step toward doing that.
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The 2-gene expression profile of HOXB13 and IL17BR in a woman's breast cancer predicts risk of recurrence in node-negative patients treated with tamoxifen
Mayo Clinic researchers report that the expression of two novel genes within the tumors of women with early stage breast cancer may allow identification of women who are and are not at risk for early relapse or cancer-related death. Results of the study are published in the April 1, 2006, issue of Clinical Cancer Research.
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Mayo Clinic researchers have uncovered a new cellular secret that may explain how certain cancers move and spread -- a feature of cancers that makes treatment especially difficult.
"These findings have broad implications toward the general understanding of how specific processes in the wave may affect such things as cell growth, cell movement and metastasis," explains Mark McNiven, Ph.D., the lead researcher on the Mayo Clinic team. "Our work provides new insights into a novel mechanism by which cells can internalize growth factor information. Understanding this process is the first step toward one day halting it, preventing it or reversing it therapeutically."
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virus

Mayo Clinic’s Molecular Medicine Program has three gene therapy clinical trials open in which the entire preclinical cycle—concept, discovery of agent, vector manufacture, toxicology and efficacy studies, and new drug application—was conducted at Mayo
The projects engineered strains of the measles virus, MV-CEA and MV-NIS, which kill multiple cancer cells, and can be monitored easily. The open trials are in ovarian cancer, glioblastoma multiforme (brain cancer), and multiple myeloma. This article discusses the general research and the first trial which opened -- ovarian cancer. The projects are a fine example of a clear translational effort from bedside to bench and back to the bedside.

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Medical Edge Newspaper
Ovarian cancer is the fifth most common cancer in women. It causes more deaths than all other cancers of the female reproductive system combined.

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Mayo Clinic Cancer Center researchers report aggressive surgical removal of as much cancer as possible throughout the abdomen in ovarian cancer patients is the best option for most women.
Results of the study are published in the January 2006 issue of Obstetrics & Gynecology.
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breast cancer genetics patient

Medical Edge Television
Ten years ago, 48,000 women -- mothers, wives, sisters -- died every year from breast cancer. Today, that number has dropped to 40,000. But it's still too high. That's why many women who are at high risk of getting breast cancer choose genetic testing.
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Publication: Mayo Clinic Proceedings -- Nov. 2005

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breast biopsy

Publication: New England Journal of Medicine -- July 21, 2005

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NCCTG

Publication: Journal of Clinical Oncology -- Sept. 15, 2004
North Central Cancer Treatment Group clinical trial
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NCCTG

Publication: Journal of Clinical Oncology -- June 15, 2004
North Central Cancer Treatment Group with National Cancer Institute of Canada
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