breast cancer vs hormone therapy

Forums: Health
Email this Topic • Print this Page

Rates of the most common form of breast cancer dropped a startling 15 percent from August 2002 to December 2003, researchers reported Thursday.

The reason, they believe, could be that during that time, millions of women abandoned hormone treatment for the symptoms of menopause after a large national study concluded that the hormones slightly increased breast cancer risk.

The new analysis, by researchers from the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston and reported at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, was based on a recent report by the National Cancer Institute on the cancer's incidence.

Investigators cautioned that they would like to see the findings confirmed in other studies, including, perhaps, in data from Canada and Europe, and that they need to see what happens in the next years.

"Epidemiology can never prove causality," said Dr. Peter Ravdin, a medical oncologist at M.D. Anderson and one of the authors of the analysis.

But, he said, the hormone hypothesis seems to perfectly explain the data, and he and his colleagues could find no other explanation.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/12/15/MNGSBN092S1.DTL

Topic Stats
Top Replies
Link to this Topic

Type: Discussion • Score: 1 • Views: 1,015 • Replies: 14

No top replies

Quote:

the hormone hypothesis seems to perfectly explain the data, and he and his colleagues could find no other explanation.

No other explanation? How about better education of women from all social classes on the benefits of mammography in the early detection of breast cancer?

Also, how about the fact that many States in the US now fund diagnostic procedures for women in low socio-economic groups, so that they can benefit from early detection and treatment of breast cancer?

Lastly, women with a genetic predispostion for breast cancer based on family history are now opting for total removal of both breasts prior to development of any carcinogenesis.

There's more to the total picture than HRT.

0 Replies

Not sure any of that would effect a dramatic change in 16 months.

0 Replies

patiodog wrote:

Not sure any of that would effect a dramatic change in 16 months.

Quote:

total removal of both breasts prior to development of any carcinogenesis.

Do you doubt the efficacy of surgical intervention prior to tumorigeneis?

0 Replies

No, of course not. But it would have to be a hell of a rapidly-adopted and widespread procedure if it resulted in a decreased incidence of 14,000 cases in 2003 alone.

0 Replies

Miller wrote:

Quote:
the hormone hypothesis seems to perfectly explain the data, and he and his colleagues could find no other explanation.

No other explanation? How about better education of women from all social classes on the benefits of mammography in the early detection of breast cancer?

Also, how about the fact that many States in the US now fund diagnostic procedures for women in low socio-economic groups, so that they can benefit from early detection and treatment of breast cancer?

Lastly, women with a genetic predispostion for breast cancer based on family history are now opting for total removal of both breasts prior to development of any carcinogenesis.

There's more to the total picture than HRT.

Your first two explanations address early detection and treatment, but the study says that there was a decrease in rates of breast cancer.

Improvements in detection and treatment don't affect rates of occurence.

0 Replies

Slightly more thorough article here. I doubt the proceedings of the conference/symposium/whatever where the findings were announced are available yet.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-12/uotm-dib121306.php

The decline in tumors with estrogen receptors was double the decline in tumors without estrogen receptors, suggesting that other factors may well indeed be at work in the decline in incidence -- but also suggesting that the reduction in hormone therapy may have had an effect on tumor growth within the population.

I did notice in the graphic with the sfgate article that there was a slight decrease in percentage of women between ages x and y who had had a mammogram in recent years. Less looking could obviously result in less detection, so I do wonder if that's got anything to do with the study results.

0 Replies

Quote:

But the researchers stress that because the analysis is based solely on population statistics, they cannot know for certain the reasons why incidence declined. "We have to sound a cautionary note because epidemiology can never prove causation," he says.

Before coming to any real conclusions, it may be best to wait for the original research article to be published in peer-reviewed format.

0 Replies

Relative to detection methods, remember that today ( as opposed to several years ago ), women over 50 are urged to have mammograms each year and women over 40 ( and under 50 ) are uged to have mammograms every two years.

Insurance today pays for the mammograms of the above two groups of women. In days past, insurance would pay ( in most cases ) for mammograms performed every 2 years on the over 50-aged women and not at all ( in most cases ) in the 40-50 year old population.

Besides age, another significant variable to the analysis of this data is race. If HRT decreases rate of incidence of breast cancer, does this decrease occur to the same extent in black, Asian , hispanic, and white women?

Since women in the lower socioeconomic classes would be less likely to afford insurance, and thus less likely to afford HRT, do these women have a reduced rate of breast cancer , when this variable alone is considered, remembering that women in this class are also less likely to have mammograms, because of lack of insurance or because of various cultural factors.

0 Replies

Quote:

While British statistics show nothing as dramatic as this, Valerie Beral of Cancer Research UK said there had been a slight drop in breast cancer between 2003 and 2004 in women aged between 50 and 64. As in the US, this followed years of steadily rising incidence.

The Australian

0 Replies

Quote:

Besides age, another significant variable to the analysis of this data is race. If HRT decreases rate of incidence of breast cancer, does this decrease occur to the same extent in black, Asian , hispanic, and white women?

This is addressed briefly in one of the two articles linked here -- don't remember which -- and the answer is no.

0 Replies

Less cancer:

Some reasons that could explain why breast cancer incidence fell l7% in 2003:

Menopause hormone use was down 30% since 2001.

Mammograms fell 3% in 2003 amon women 50-64 years old.

Calcium use surged 40% from 2000-2003.

Raloxifene, use jumped 12% from 2001-2003.

Anti-inflammatory drug use more than double from 1999-2003.

WSJ.com

0 Replies

Never heard of Raloxifene. Good stuff. Seems like it might have a potential role in a combination treatment with hormone replacement therapy, though a quick search doesn't uncover anything on this possibility. Hmmm....

I know a neurology researcher who looks at hormone-dependent pathways in the pathogenesis of obstructive sleep apnea who is concerned that the benefits of hormone replacement therapy vis-a-vis reducing sleep apnea -- and associated hypertension and lost quality of life -- might far outweigh the increased risk of breast cancer, at least in individuals without a family history of cancer.

Wonder what the combined effects of estrogen/progesterone and Raloxifene would be on bone resorption........

0 Replies

http://www.breastcancer.org/research_hormonal_raloxifene.html

0 Replies

Yeah, I saw that. But that's just Raloxifene alone, which does nothing for hot flashes and the like -- it's just protective against osteoporosis, and so is not an effect-for-effect substitute for more conventional hormone replacement therapy.

What I'm wondering about is the possibility of using this drug together with hormone-replacement therapy, since Raloxifene antagonizes the actions of estrogen in the breast. Or perhaps it antagonizes estrogen in tissues responsible for other undesireable post-menopausal symptoms, as well, and there would be no point in combining therapies....

(I'm too lazy to log in through the uni library and thumb through the pubs, since I should be doing other **** right now anyway...)

0 Replies

breast cancer vs hormone therapy

Related Topics

Quick Links

My Account

able2know