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After surgery, because the cancer may have spread to the lymph nodes, many women who have had a lumpectomy or mastectomy may also be treated with radiation therapy. Chemotherapy may also be an option, though it is most often recommended for women who have not gone through menopause. It is also most often prescribed for use before and/or during the surgery, but not after, when the drug tamoxifen is usually prescribed. Tamoxifen is the most commonly prescribed drug for breast cancer because it has almost no side effects, which is unusual for an anticancer drug. In fact, tamoxifen is actually a hormone that is often prescribed in combination with other hormonal therapy. It can slow or reverse the spread of breast cancer when a tumor has not responded to other treatment methods.

Tamoxifen works by depleting the estrogen receptors in breast cancer cells, which, in essence, starves the cells, since they thrive on estrogen. The side effects of tamoxifen include mild pain in the bones, an increased need for calcium, and hot flashes in postmenopausal women. Because estrogen naturally strengthens bones, there is some concern that tamoxifen, an antiestrogen hormone, may increase a woman’s risk of developing osteoporosis after treatment, but usually this can be offset by increased intake of calcium and exercise. The advantages of using tamoxifen to treat breast cancer are that these side effects are minor compared to those of other anticancer drugs and that it reduces the risk of a recurrence of the cancer.

However, breast cancer can be fickle in the way it responds to treatment. Some tumors will shrink and go into remission in response to estrogen hormones, while others will completely disappear with antiestrogen hormones such as androgens and progesterone. Because it is difficult to predict how a tumor will respond to a given hormone, if your doctor is treating you with chemotherapy, you may feel like a guinea pig at times. But tumors are fickle, and what may have worked successfully to shrink a tumor once may not succeed on the next go-round. So your doctor will keep trying, with the final goal being complete remission. If hormonal therapy fails to work, your doctor may try a corticosteroid such as prednisone, which can also be effective in treating breast cancer.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, April 9th, 2009 at 10:31 am and is filed under General health. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.