Have there been any real advances over the past few years in breast cancer research and cure?

Not really: Many women are treated for dcis as if they have breast cancer when this can regress without treatment in up to half of the women. When you lump this non cancer diagnosis into the treatment results they look much better. If you subtract these women from the data there isn't much improvement in the past 20 years - just more expensive meds. Women need to manage hormones/diet to prevent breast cancer!

Yes: Few yrs? Surgery: a new recommendation to stop routinely dissecting axillae for nodes, this decreases the risk of lymphedema without effect on os or dfs or recurrence. Med onc: targeted therapies such at herceptin, (trastuzumab) tdm-1, microtubule inhibitors are all new as well as new combinations being tried. Radiation: partial breast 5 day course is fairly new.

Yes: There have been many advances in breast cancer from newer radiology testing modalities, new ways to test dna in the breast cancer cells to help determine best treatments, new radiation therapy options, as well as newer types of surgery to help preserve the breast tissue. The advances are so numerous it is hard to describe in this short answer venue.