Why not try to prevent breast cancer?

Can we do that? The answer is yes! I’ve talked about risk factors for breast cancer that can be lowered. We know that staying slim, exercising, not taking post-menopausal hormones containing progesterone can reduce a woman’s risk of breast cancer. But we can’t change a woman’s genes. If a woman has the wrong genes, then all these things can help, but not enough. There are drugs that can reduce breast cancer risk. These are called SERMs – an abbreviation that says that these drugs attach to sites on cells where estrogen attaches. It is thought that estrogen fuels breast cancer growth. The first of these SERMs was tamoxifen, discovered at least 30 years ago. Early studies of tamoxifen in women treated for breast cancer with this drug found that there was a reduced rate of cancer in the other breast – the one that didn’t have cancer originally. More studies found it reduces breast cancer rates in high high-risk women without the disease. But tamoxifen has side effects. The most disturbing one is that it stimulates the lining of the uterus and so that women taking it have a higher rate of cancer of the uterus. Since the development of tamoxifen, other SERM drugs have been created – raloxifene, lanoxifene, and arzofoxifene. None of these newer drugs cause uterine cancer. All the drugs have the benefit of strengthening bones – so they also prevent osteoporosis, which is actually why raloxifene was first developed. In the early trials, not only did it prevent os...
Source: Dr.Kattlove's Cancer Blog - Category: Oncologists Source Type: blogs