Hormone Treatment For Breast Cancer

Questions To Ask The Health Care Team

• What side effects are common from the hormone therapy treatment you are recommending for me?

• When is it likely that side effects will occur? How often?

• How long will side effects last? Could any of them be permanent?

• Is there anything I can do to prepare for these side effects?

• What can the health care team do to prevent or relieve side effects?

• Who should I tell if I begin experiencing side effects from hormone therapy? How soon?

• What side effects are considered emergencies? What should I do if I experience an urgent side effect?

• Who do I contact if I have questions about specifci side effects?

• How can I reach them during regular business hours? After hours?

• Are there any support groups you can recommend to help cope with the fear of side effects?

• Are there other ways I can cope with my fears about the effects of treatment?

• Can you recommend a social worker, counselor, or supportive or palliative care specialist for me to talk with?

Surgical Removal Of The Ovaries

The operation to remove the ovaries is called oophorectomy. Surgical removal of the ovaries is a permanent way to reduce the levels of oestrogen.

It is a very effective treatment to stop early breast cancer returning or to slow the progress of metastatic cancer. This can also reduce the risk of developing ovarian cancer.

Surgery to remove the ovaries can be done with keyhole surgery or with an open operation .

Your surgeon will discuss with you the pros and cons of these different techniques. Oophorectomy is done under a general anaesthetic .

Usually the fallopian tubes are also removed but the uterus is left intact. After oophorectomy, the symptoms of menopause may come on suddenly. This is different to turning off the ovaries with medication which brings menopausal symptoms on gradually

How Is Hormone Therapy Used To Treat Breast Cancer

There are three main ways that hormone therapy is used to treat hormone-sensitive breast cancer:

Adjuvant therapy for early-stage breast cancer:Tamoxifen is FDA approved for adjuvant hormone treatment of premenopausal and postmenopausal women with ER-positive early-stage breast cancer, and the aromatase inhibitorsanastrozole, letrozole, and exemestane are approved for this use in postmenopausal women.

Research has shown that women who receive at least 5 years of adjuvant therapy with tamoxifen after having surgery for early-stage ER-positive breast cancer have reduced risks of breast cancer recurrence, including a new breast cancer in the other breast, and reduced risk of death at 15 years .

Until recently, most women who received adjuvant hormone therapy to reduce the chance of a breast cancer recurrence took tamoxifen every day for 5 years. However, with the introduction of newer hormone therapies , some of which have been compared with tamoxifen in clinical trials, additional approaches to hormone therapy have become common .

Some premenopausal women with early-stage ER-positive breast cancer may have ovarian suppression plus an aromatase inhibitor, which was found to have higher rates of freedom from recurrence than ovarian suppression plus tamoxifen or tamoxifen alone .

Men with early-stage ER-positive breast cancer who receive adjuvant therapy are usually treated first with tamoxifen. Those treated with an aromatase inhibitor usually also take a GnRH agonist.

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How Long Will I Be On Treatment

Duration of treatment depends on your individual situation, but its usually at least five to 10 years.

Youll still see your treatment team regularly for follow-up visits. If youre experiencing any side effects or unusual symptoms, tell your healthcare provider. They can often help with side effects or offer tips to minimize them. Theyll also monitor your cancer for any changes or recurrence.

What Are Hormone Inhibitors And How Do They Work

Hormone inhibitors also target breast cancer cells with hormone receptors, but unlike hormone blockers, they work by reducing the bodys hormone production. When breast cancer cells are cut off from the food supply the tumor begins to starve and die.Generally, the benefits of using hormone therapy and chemotherapy together have a much greater combined effect than using either alone. If your breast cancer is positive for hormone receptors, your doctor may recommend both therapies.

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Breast Cancer And Tamoxifen

Tamoxifen is a pill that doctors have prescribed for more than 30 years to treat breast cancer. It works by keeping estrogen from attaching to the cancer cells.

Doctors first used tamoxifen to treat women whose breast cancer had spread in their bodies because it slowed or stopped the growth of the disease. The drug also lowers the chance that some early stage breast cancers will come back. And it can lower the risk that a woman will get cancer in the other breast later on.

Women who are at high risk for breast cancer can take tamoxifen to try to lower their chances of getting the disease. Itâs an alternative to watchful waiting or having surgery to remove a breast, called a mastectomy, before they get the disease.

Tamoxifen is an option for:

• Treatment of the earliest form of breast cancer, ductal carcinoma in situ , along with surgery
• Treatment of abnormal cells in the glands that make milk, called lobular carcinoma in situ , to lessen the chance that theyâll become more advanced breast cancer
• Treatment of breast cancer in men and women whose cancers use estrogen
• Treatment of breast cancer that has spread to other parts of the body or that comes back after treatment
• To prevent breast cancer in women at high risk for the disease

Some people should not use tamoxifen:

• Women planning to get pregnant
• Men or women whoâve had blood clots or a stroke

Talk to your doctor to see if tamoxifen is right for you.

• Sexual side effects like erectile dysfunction or a lower sex drive

When Is Hormone Therapy Used For Breast Cancer

Hormone therapy is often used after surgery to help reduce the risk of the cancer coming back. Sometimes it is started before surgery .

It is usually taken for at least 5 years. Treatment longer than 5 years might be offered to women whose cancers have a higher chance of coming back. A test called the Breast Cancer Index might be used to help decide if a woman will benefit from more than 5 years of hormone therapy.

Hormone therapy can also be used to treat cancer that has come back after treatment or that has spread to other parts of the body.

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Possible Side Effects Of Hormone Therapy

Some side effects are common to all methods of hormone therapy and are due to the reduced levels of oestrogen.

These include:

Tamoxifen and aromatase inhibitors also produce some different side effects. You may experience some of the side effects listed, but are unlikely to experience them all.

For most people who are recommended to take hormone therapy for breast cancer, the risks of treatment are outweighed by the benefits.

Here is a list of possible side effects that might be experienced on tamoxifen and aromatase inhibitors:

Treatment Of Breast Cancer Stages I

The stage of your breast cancer is an important factor in making decisions about your treatment.

Most women with breast cancer in stages I, II, or III are treated with surgery, often followed by radiation therapy. Many women also get some kind of systemic drug therapy . In general, the more the breast cancer has spread, the more treatment you will likely need. But your treatment options are affected by your personal preferences and other information about your breast cancer, such as:

• If the cancer cells have hormone receptors. That is, if the cancer is estrogen receptor -positive or progesterone receptor -positive.
• If the cancer cells have large amounts of the HER2 protein
• How fast the cancer is growing
• Your overall health
• If you have gone through menopause or not

Talk with your doctor about how these factors can affect your treatment options.

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Hormone Therapy Can Cause Side Effects

Because hormone therapy blocks your bodys ability to produce hormones or interferes with how hormones behave, it can cause unwanted side effects. The side effects you have will depend on the type of hormone therapy you receive and how your body responds to it. People respond differently to the same treatment, so not everyone gets the same side effects. Some side effects also differ if you are a man or a woman.

Some common side effects for men who receive hormone therapy for prostate cancer include

Hormone Therapy For Postmenopausal Women

After menopause, hormone therapy for women with metastatic breast cancer can be an aromatase inhibitor, tamoxifen, fulvestrant or other hormone therapy drug.

If the first hormone therapy stops working and the cancer starts to grow again, a second hormone therapy can be used. If the second drug stops working, another can be tried.

Ovarian suppression isnt helpful for postmenopausal women because their ovaries have already stopped producing large amounts of estrogen.

Learn more about tamoxifen.

Learn more about aromatase inhibitors.

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Systemic Treatments For Stage Iv Breast Cancer

Treatment often continues until the cancer starts growing again or until side effects become unacceptable. If this happens, other drugs might be tried. The types of drugs used for stage IV breast cancer depend on the hormone receptor status, the HER2 status of the cancer, and sometimes gene mutations that might be found.

If You Cant Have Surgery

Surgery is the main treatment for breast cancer, but some women have health problems that mean they cant have surgery. Some women choose not to have surgery.

In this case, if your breast cancer is oestrogen receptor positive, your doctor might recommend hormone therapy. This treatment won’t get rid of the cancer but can stop it growing or shrink it.

The treatment can often control the cancer for some time. Your doctor might change you to a different type of hormone treatment if your cancer starts growing again.

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Hormone Therapy For Breast Cancer In Men

Hormone therapy is a way to treat cancer by using hormones or drugs or other treatments that affect hormones. Hormone therapy is a form of systemic therapy, like chemotherapy. It can be used after surgery to help lower the risk of cancer coming back, or before surgery . It is also used to treat cancer that has spread, or cancer that has come back after treatment .

Some breast cancers grow in response to the hormones estrogen or progesterone. Estrogen and progesterone are usually thought of as female hormones, but men have them in their bodies also, just at lower levels. About 9 of 10 breast cancers in men are hormone receptor-positive. This makes them more likely to respond to hormone treatments. Breast cancers can be estrogen receptor -positive, or progesterone receptor -positive, or both. Hormone therapy does not help people whose tumors are both ER- and PR-negative.

How To Tell If Hormone Therapy Is Working

If you are taking hormone therapy for prostate cancer, you will have regular PSA tests. If hormone therapy is working, your PSA levels will stay the same or may even go down. But, if your PSA levels go up, this may be a sign that the treatment is no longer working. If this happens, your doctor will discuss treatment options with you.

If you are taking hormone therapy for breast cancer, you will have regular check-ups. Checkups usually include an exam of the neck, underarm, chest, and breast areas. You will have regular mammograms, though you probably wont need a mammogram of a reconstructed breast. Your doctor may also order other imaging procedures or lab tests.

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Who Gets Hormone Therapy For Breast Cancer

When youâre diagnosed with breast cancer, your doctor will test cells from your tumor to see if they have parts on their surfaces called receptors that use estrogen or progesterone. If they do, it means that they depend on these hormones to grow. In that case, your doctor will probably recommend hormone therapy as part of your treatment plan.

If youâve already been treated for breast cancer, you might use hormone therapy to help keep it from coming back. It also helps lower your odds of getting new cancers in the other breast.

Also, if you don’t have the disease but have a family history of it, or genes that raise your risk, your doctor may recommend hormone therapy to lower your chances of getting it.

What Is Hormonal Therapy

Hormones help control how cells grow and what they do in the body. The hormones oestrogen and progesterone, particularly oestrogen, can encourage some breast cancers to grow.

Hormonal therapies reduce the amount of oestrogen in the body or stop it attaching to the cancer cells. They only work for women with oestrogen-receptor positive cancers.

Your cancer doctor will advise you to take hormonal therapy to reduce the risk of the breast cancer coming back. It also helps reduce the risk of getting a new breast cancer in your other breast. Sometimes hormonal therapy drugs are given before surgery to shrink a cancer and avoid a mastectomy.

You usually take hormonal therapy drugs for a number of years. For some women, this could be up to 10 years. You usually start taking them after surgery or chemotherapy.

The type of hormonal therapy you have depends on:

• whether you have been through the menopause or not
• the risk of the cancer coming back
• how the side effects are likely to affect you.

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What Are The Side Effects Of Hormone Therapy

The side effects of hormone therapy depend largely on the specific drug or the type of treatment . The benefits and harms of taking hormone therapy should be carefully weighed for each person. A common switching strategy used for adjuvant therapy, in which patients take tamoxifen for 2 or 3 years, followed by an aromatase inhibitor for 2 or 3 years, may yield the best balance of benefits and harms of these two types of hormone therapy .

Hot flashes, night sweats, and vaginal dryness are common side effects of all hormone therapies. Hormone therapy also may disrupt the menstrual cycle in premenopausal women.

Less common but serious side effects of hormone therapy drugs are listed below.

Tamoxifen

• breathing problems, including painful breathing, shortness of breath, and cough
• loss of appetite

How Do Hormone Therapies Work

Hormone therapy drugs slow or stop the growth of hormone receptor-positive breast cancers in a couple of ways:

• Some hormone therapies, such as tamoxifen, attach to the hormone receptor in the cancer cell and block estrogen from attaching to the receptor.
• Others, such as aromatase inhibitors and ovarian suppression, lower the level of estrogen in the body so the cancer cells cant get the estrogen they need to grow.

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Side Effects Of Tamoxifen And Toremifene

The most common side effects of tamoxifen and toremifene are:

• Vaginal dryness or discharge
• Changes in the menstrual cycle

When tamoxifen treatment starts, a small number of women with cancer that has spread to the bones might have a tumor flare which can cause bone pain. This usually decreases quickly, but in some rare cases a woman may also develop a high calcium level in the blood that is hard to control. If this happens, the treatment may need to be stopped for a time.

Rare, but more serious side effects are also possible:

Hormone Therapy Has A Bigger Impact Than Chemotherapy On Womens Quality Of Life

Cellules cancéreuses. Expression de la protéine PML en rouge et du gène ZNF703 en vert dans des cellules de la lignée de cancer du sein MCF7. ©Inserm/Ginestier, Christophe

Analysis of the CANTO cohort published in the journal Annals of Oncology will upset received wisdom on the effects that hormone therapy and chemotherapy have on the quality of life in women with breast cancer. Contrary to the commonly held view, 2 years after diagnosis, hormone therapy, a highly effective breast cancer treatment worsens quality of life to a greater extent and for a longer time, especially in menopausal patients. The deleterious effects of chemotherapy are more transient. Given that current international guidelines recommend the prescription of hormone therapy for 5 to 10 years, it is important to offer treatment to women who develop severe symptoms due to hormone antagonist medication and to identify those who might benefit from less prolonged or intensive treatment strategies.

This work was directed by Dr Inès Vaz-Luis, specialist breast cancer oncologist and researcher at Gustave Roussy in the lab Predictive Biomarkers and Novel Therapeutic Strategies in Oncology .

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If Cancer Has Come Back Or Spread

Hormone therapy can be used to treat breast cancer that has come back or that has spread to another part of the body .

Its given either alone or with other treatments, depending on what treatments you had before.

If your breast cancer came back during or after treatment with hormone therapy, you may be offered a different type of hormone therapy.

Hormone Therapy Drugs For Metastatic Breast Cancer

Some hormone therapy drugs are pills and some are given by injection under the skin .

To learn more about a specific hormone therapy, visit the National Institutes of Healths Medline Plus website.

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