Estrogen may help prevent breast cancer: Study

Dr. Mathew Ellis and colleagues from the Washington School of Medicine in St Louis analyzed 66 women who had reached the advanced stage of the cancer and were being treated with ‘Pfizer's Aromasin’, ‘Novartis's Femara’ and ‘AstraZeneca Plc's Arimidex’, new drugs for the treatment of breast cancer.

Dr. Ellis said, "The women in the study had all experienced a relapse while on estrogen-lowering drugs, and their disease was progressing.”

“So they were faced with undergoing chemotherapy. We found that estrogen treatment stopped disease progression in many patients and was much better tolerated than chemotherapy would have been,” he added.

Easy Treatment for Breast Cancer
The researchers gave ‘estradiol’ a form of estrogen to these women in both high and low doses and found that 30 percent of the women showed signs of improvement.

"This trial simply confirms previously known knowledge, that estrogen can be used to treat metastatic hormone-dependent breast cancer in postmenopausal women," said Dr. Ramona Swaby, an assistant professor of medical oncology at Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia.

The study also found that those given a low dose, showed better recovery compared to those given a high dose. Negative side effects were seen more in the case of higher doses.

Caution Suggested
A high dose of the drug may cause headaches, bloating, breast tenderness, fluid retention, nausea and vomiting.

The researchers suggest that low dose of estrogen may help cure certain types of breast cancer but the drug should only be taken with prior approval from the doctor.

Dr. Ellis and his colleagues have not been able to understand how estrogen helps in treating breast cancer but they are planning more research to ascertain this.

Further, the study can also help in finding what types of breast cancers, will estrogen control more effectively.

The findings have been published in the August 19 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.