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Nurses play an integral role in high-quality patient care. Thus, their skills in providing end-of-life care should be assessed and continually enhanced. Education intended to improve end-of-life skills must address the affective/emotional component of nursing care. Evidence demonstrates that emotional engagement and resilience among health care providers are correlated with improved quality outcomes and, conversely, that burnout and stress negatively affect patient safety. Addressing the emotional needs of health care providers is critical to improving quality throughout the health care system. An evidence-based workshop was implemented among direct care staff on a hospital-based palliative care unit, with the goal of fostering emotional engagement to improve staff perceptions and attitudes about caring for patients at or near the end of life. Although perceptions about quality of death were not affected by this intervention, there was a significant improvement in attitudes about end-of-life nursing care. Qualitative feedback also reflected appreciation for small group discussions and opportunities to debrief with peers away from the unit. This intervention reflected the value of emotional engagement in educational efforts to improve end-of-life nursing care.

Background Germline mutations in CDH1 are associated with hereditary diffuse gastric cancer; lobular breast cancer also occurs excessively in families with such condition. Method To determine if CDH1 is a susceptibility gene for lobular breast cancer in women without a family history of diffuse gastric cancer, germline DNA was analysed for the presence of CDH1 mutations in 318 women with lobular breast cancer who were diagnosed before the age of 45 years or had a family history of breast cancer and were not known, or known not, to be carriers of germline mutations in BRCA1 or BRCA2 . Cases were ascertained through breast cancer registries and high-risk cancer genetic clinics (Breast Cancer Family Registry, the kConFab and a consortium of breast cancer genetics clinics in the United States and Spain). Additionally, Multiplex Ligation-dependent Probe Amplification was performed for 134 cases to detect large deletions. Results No truncating mutations and no large deletions were detected. Six non-synonymous variants were found in seven families. Four (4/318 or 1.3%) are considered to be potentially pathogenic through in vitro and in silico analysis. Conclusion Potentially pathogenic germline CDH1 mutations in women with early-onset or familial lobular breast cancer are at most infrequent.

The purpose of the current study was to characterize the outcomes of patients with metastatic triple-negative breast cancers, including the risk and clinical consequences of central nervous system (CNS) recurrence.Using pharmacy and pathology records, a study group of 116 patients who were treated for metastatic triple-negative breast cancer at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute between January 2000 and June 2006 was identified.The median survival from time of metastatic diagnosis was 13.3 months. Sixteen patients (14%) were diagnosed with CNS involvement at the time of initial metastatic diagnosis; overall, 46% of patients were diagnosed with CNS metastases before death. The median survival after a diagnosis of CNS metastasis was 4.9 months. The age-adjusted and race-adjusted rate of death for patients whose first presentation included a CNS metastasis was 3.4 times (95% confidence interval, 1.9-6.1 times) that of patients without a CNS lesion at the time of first metastatic presentation. Of the 53 patients who developed brain metastases, only 3 patients were judged to have stable or responsive systemic disease in the face of progressive CNS disease at the last follow-up before death.Triple-negative breast cancer is associated with poor survival after recurrence. CNS recurrence is common, but death as a direct consequence of CNS progression in the setting of controlled systemic disease is uncommon. Thus, it does not appear that the high rate of CNS involvement is because of a sanctuary effect, but rather is due to the lack of effective therapies in general for this aggressive subtype of breast cancer. New treatment strategies are needed.

11042 Background: Invasive lobular breast carcinoma (LBC) is part of the hereditary diffuse gastric cancer (HDGC) syndrome, associated with germline mutations in the E-cadherin (CDH1) gene. CDH1 mutations can be identified in 80% of families ascertained by DGC. The risk of DGC in CDH1 mutation carriers is 67% in males, and 83% in females; the estimated risk of LBC in women is 39–50% to age 80. Management of HDGC includes prophylactic gastrectomy. In this study, we estimated the prevalence of germline CDH1mutations among women with LBC who were either diagnosed at young age or had family history of breast cancer (BC). Methods: Germline DNA was collected from 383 women with LBC or mixed, lobular/ductal, BC from breast cancer programs, familial cancer clinics, and population-based cohorts. Germline BRCA1or BRCA2mutations carriers were excluded. Eligible women had (1) LBC before age 45 or (2) LBC at any age with at least two 1st or 2nd degree relatives with BC of any type. Denaturing high pressure liquid chromatography was undertaken, followed by direct sequencing of exons displaying changes. Results: At the time of submission 310 of 383 samples have been fully sequenced. One previously characterized missense mutation and four novel non-synonymous variants (1.6%) were found. Three of these women had LBC before 45 years and no family history of BC; two had BC family history. No gastric cancers were reported in these families. Functional assays to assess the pathogenicity of the variants are in process. Conclusions: These results confirm that CDH1 is responsible for a small proportion of familial and early onset LBC. Given the difficulty of identifying CDH1 mutations from BC history alone and the importance of managing the gastric cancer risk in CDH1carriers, these findings should underscore the need to obtain an accurate abdominal cancer family history from women with LBC. No significant financial relationships to disclose.