Breast cancer remains a worldwide public health concern despite the fact that mortality rates have been declining in some countries as a result of improvements in adjuvant therapy and screening for breast cancer. In the prevention arena, advances in our understanding of the effects of tamoxifen have led to the investigations of newer agents that may provide extended options for breast cancer prevention in high-risk women. For women who are carriers of a mutation in the breast cancer susceptibility genes BRCA1 or BRCA2, prophylactic oophorectomy and bilateral mastectomy have emerged as preventative surgical options that can significantly impact breast cancer risk. In addition, the identification of potentially modifiable risk factors for breast cancer such as dietary folate intake, alcohol consumption, physical activity, and certain anthropometric factors provides opportunities for intervening in breast cancer prevention both among women at average and high risk. The challenge remains in overcoming the limitations of mammography and clinical breast examination by developing and evaluating new technologies for breast cancer screening such as digital mammogram and breast magnetic resonance imaging.

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In November, 2008 the AACR held the Seventh Annual Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research meeting in National Harbor, Maryland. At this meeting, a wide range of cutting-edge cancer prevention research was presented. This summary highlights some of the most impactful presentations with a focus on the interaction between inflammation, infections, the immune system, and tumor microenvironment in promoting cancer. Several of these presentations described targeting host-tumor interactions as a means for cancer prevention. As discussed below, this meeting continues to represent all phases of cancer prevention research including epidemiologic studies, behavioral and lifestyle interventions, carcinogenesis research, preclinical studies testing novel preventive interventions, and the results of early and late phase cancer prevention trials. Major advances presented at the 2008 meeting included studies demonstrating that immune cells can be either pro- or anti-tumorigenic, efforts to develop more comprehensive HPV vaccines to more effectively prevent cervical cancer and other HPV-related cancers, controversial studies of Vitamin D and cancer risk, and studies of single nucleotide polymorphisms to better assess cancer risk. These and the other presentations at this meeting continue to provide strong support for the concept that cancer will be most effectively controlled by applying modern cancer prevention strategies

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