Cancer Survivors Network nre item May 16 !!!!!!! ??????

jeancmici
jeancmici Member Posts: 665 Member
edited March 2014 in Breast Cancer #1
Here I am dying to get started on tamoxifen and read on......

"HRT may lower breast cancer risk"








"Hormone replacement therapy given to women with breast cancer is associated with a lower risk of recurrence of the disease, researchers said.


Hormone replacement therapy is used by women to address menopausal symptoms such as hot flashes, by replacing female hormones like estrogen that drop off at menopause.


But there was concern among doctors that estrogen could trigger a recurrence of breast cancer, so the therapy has been avoided in women who have had breast cancer.


Researchers at the University of Washington found that women who had undergone hormone replacement therapy experienced about half the risk of recurrence as women who had not had the therapy, as well as one-third the risk of death from breast cancer and half the risk of death from any cause.


The study appears in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.


It looked at 174 women who had undergone the therapy and four times that number who had not. All had been diagnosed with breast cancer between 1977 and 1994.


The researchers said the study did not definitively determine that such therapy taken after the diagnosis of breast cancer was beneficial and said more research was needed.

Comments

  • cruf
    cruf Member Posts: 908
    #2
    Hmmmmmmm!!!! I wonder if all these hot flashes from Tamoxifin are necessary. I guess I have another question to ask my surgeon in June. Thanks for the info! Cathy
  • ondine19572
    ondine19572 Member Posts: 15
    #3
    Hi Jean - Tamoxifen is not hormone replacement theraphy - it is an anti-estrogen drug - it stops the bad estrogen that your tumor was feeding on. Hormone replacement therapy is something completely different - given mainly to women going thru menopause to replace estrogent being lost - this is like the opposite. I have been on Tamoxifen for about a year now and it is fine! Good luck, Nancy
  • jeancmici
    jeancmici Member Posts: 665 Member
    #4
    ondine19572 said:

    Hi Jean - Tamoxifen is not hormone replacement theraphy - it is an anti-estrogen drug - it stops the bad estrogen that your tumor was feeding on. Hormone replacement therapy is something completely different - given mainly to women going thru menopause to replace estrogent being lost - this is like the opposite. I have been on Tamoxifen for about a year now and it is fine! Good luck, Nancy

    I know what you've said - but this item on this website contradicts everything that's been said. Articles now and then have hinted thst MAYBE it is possible to be on HRT AFTER breast cancer - in the next generation - not ours!

    Jean
  • bdean
    bdean Member Posts: 259
    #5
    Dear Jean:
    If your cancer was NOT estrogen positive, I am not sure what the onc. might say. Mine was estrogen fed from HRT and made it grow and spread even faster. I would never in a million years suggest that anyone go through with estrogen replacement just on the slim chance that if they have a small tumor growing somewhere, that the added estrogen would be like fuel on a smouldering ember. I know many women will never have a problem with it, but because of what happened to me, I am overly cautious about it. Hope all goes well with you, and maybe one of these other oral drugs will prove to do what TAmoxifen does without the hot flashes. We can only pray and hope!!!!!!!!!!!!
    Sincerely, Brenda

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