Fight Breast Cancer

Fight Breast Cancer

Scottsdale  – This morning’s Reuters Health section reports the findings of a study of  hormone replacement therapy (HRT), post-menoupausal women and the relationship with breast cancer.  According to the research, those women whose breasts became tender after taking hormone replacement therapy had nearly twice the risk of developing breast cancer than women who did not develop  tenderness  of the breasts while on these drugs.

The research published in the Archives of Internal Medicine involved 8,506 patients taking estrogen plus progestin and 8,102 individuals taking placebo pills. The investigators said that breast tenderness may identify women who have a higher risk of developing breast cancer while taking hormone replacement therapy to treat menopause. The study findings only applies to this patient group and not to younger individuals. Overall, more than 16,000 women who took estrogen-plus-progestin as part of the Women’s Health Initiative  were analyzed. The research was halted in 2002 when researchers found healthy menopausal women who took the drugs were more likely to develop breast cancer.

“We report that an increase in breast tenderness, easily detected by physicians or patients, identifies a population at particular risk for breast cancer,” Dr. Carolyn Crandall of the University of California Los Angeles. The investigators said that while the findings are intriguing, the exact relationship between breast tenderness and breast cancer risk was not completely clear. Breast tenderness is not an established risk factor for breast cancer.

Doctors currently recommend hormone replacement therapy for women suffering from severe menopause symptoms, but caution that they should use the lowest dose possible for the shortest period of time to minimize risks. “We need to figure out what makes certain women more susceptible to developing breast tenderness during hormone therapy,” Dr. Crandall said.

Based on the data analysis, the research found that women who took hormone treatments had 3-times the risk of developing breast tenderness.  Those with breast tenderness after taking the HRT were at 48 percent higher risk of invasive breast cancer than women who took hormone replacement therapy but did not develop tenderness.

“It may be that hormone therapy is causing breast-tissue cells to multiply more rapidly, but the team could not tell that by the study,” Dr. Crandall said.

This report may represent the first evidence in the relationship between  breast tenderness and the development of breast cancer in postmenopausal women taking HRT. However, without more research and more more data we cannot make too much of the findings until the evidence is confirmed. In general, breast tenderness is not considered a risk factor for breast cancer. Additionally, the results of this study would only apply to tenderness in this select group of patients.

Based on previous medical studies, we know that estrogen consumption can predispose to certain medical conditions, including breast cancer. It would be a great help to find such a simple risk factor, such as, breast tenderness in identifying which patients should be monitored more closely for the development of breast cancer. We will not be able to use this evidence until more confirmation is obtained.