breast cancer

News Flash!!!! More bad news about hormone therapy

Posted by Liz on Dec 14, 2008 in breast cancer, HRT | 2 comments

Today marks the close of 31st Annual San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium. And the news that taking hormones to prevent menopause symptoms for five years doubles the risk for breast cancer.

Dr. Rowan Chelboski from the Harbor-UCLA Medical Center presented these bubble bursting results on Saturday.  Tracking over 15,000 women originally enrolled in the halted  Women’s Health Initiative study (originally designed to examine the use of Wyeth’s Prempro until higher risks of heart disease were observed), the researchers plotted breast cancer cases over time for an average 5.5 years.

Importantly, they saw a clear trend showing increased breast cancer risk at the start of using the pills, a peak in risk as the study ended, and a decline once the women stopped using the pills. At its peak, women using hormones had twice the risk of developing breast cancer as those who never used them.

What’s more, despite the argument that the decline in cancer rates seen after women stopped using hormones might be due to fewer mammograms being done to detect cancer, these new data show that mammogram rates were the same among women taking hormones and those not taking hormones.

So what’s the take-away advice? Experts suggest that hormone use in the short-term (3-4) is still safe but recommend that long-term use be avoided or at the very least, dosage reduced.

Personally? I’d look for other safer solutions for those bothersome side effects of menopause.

What do you think?!

Hope springs eternal: black cohosh

Posted by Liz on Oct 18, 2008 in breast cancer, estrogen | 0 comments

There may be good news on the horizon for perimenopausal women with hormone receptor-positive breast cancer.  Researchers from the University of Missouri-Columbia are conducting an animal study to see how black cohosh and the tamoxifen interact.

Unfortunately, breast cancer patients who take tamoxifen to prevent their cancer from recurring, are unable to take hormones for menopausal symptoms that often occur as the drug starts working to shut down estrogen production. Consequently, one of the only options available to them are antidepressants, which are not always effective and depending on the agent, may cause side effects such as weight gain, fatigue or reduced sexual desire.

It’s a hopeful path that may help alleviate undesired side effects in women with breast cancer. If you’re interesting in reading more about black cohosh, you can click on the word in the tags category on the sidebar.