Best Therapy For Breast Cancer

How long should a patient take tamoxifen for the treatment of breast cancer? This is a question that almost all the breast cancer patients will ask. Patients with advanced breast cancer may take tamoxifen for varying lengths of time, depending on their response to this treatment and other factors. When used as adjuvant therapy for early stage breast cancer, tamoxifen is generally prescribed for 5 years. However, the best length of treatment with tamoxifen is not known.

Another question is, how often shall we consume the tamoxifen? 2 studies have confirmed the benefit of taking adjuvant tamoxifen daily for 5 years. These studies compared 5 years of treatment with tamoxifen with 10 years of treatment. When taken for 5 years, the drug decreases the risk of recurrence of the original breast cancer and also reduces the risk of developing a second primary cancer in the other breast. Taking tamoxifen for longer than 5 years is not more effective than 5 years of therapy.

What is Tamoxifen? Tamoxifen is an oral selective estrogen receptor modulator which is used in breast cancer treatment, and is currently the world's largest selling breast cancer therapy. It is used for the treatment of early and advanced breast cancer in pre- and post-menopausal women. It is also approved by the FDA for the reduction of the incidence of breast cancer in women at high risk of developing the disease. It has been further approved for the reduction of contralateral (in the opposite breast) breast cancer.

Tamoxifen is used to reduce the risk of breast cancer for women who:

• Are at high risk of breast cancer but have no personal history of the disease
• Have hormone-receptor-positive invasive breast cancer at any stage
• iHave non-invasive, hormone-receptor-positive breast cancer, or DCIS (ductal carcinoma in situ)

Furthermore, Tamoxifen is sometimes used to treat gynecomastia in men. Tamoxifen is also used by bodybuilders in a steroid cycle to try and prevent or reduce drug-induced gynecomastia caused by steroids that are used in the same cycle.

Moreover, Tamoxifen is used to treat infertility in women with anovulatory disorders. A dose of 10-40 mg per day is administered in days 3-7 of a woman's cycle.

Summing up, we can use tamoxifen as an effective breast cancer treatment drug. Yet, it should not be over used. The side effects of this drug are terrible. Therefore, we should only use it under the guidance of a specialist.

If you want to know more about breast cancer, you may read Fighting With Breast Cancer and What Is Breast Cancer for details.

Birth Control Pill Induces Breast Cancer

Birth control Pill is the drug that was taken by people to control the birth rate. This drug has been widely used in the world since 40 years ago.

The birth control Pill is welcomed by plenty of men and women since United States government approved it in 1960. The contraception can be prevented by consuming the Pill to get the similar result.

The birth control pill was designed for social use but not for the medical purposes. However, the high dosage Pill can cause a lot of health problems to the user.

As a result of the hearings, pharmaceutical companies lowered the dosages and doctors recommended women who have the problems below should avoid from taking the Pill:

• Obese
• High blood pressure
• Smoked
• Family history of blood clots

In the 1980s, the high dosage 10-milligram pill was discarded from the market and biphasic and triphasic oral contraceptives were introduced. Today, women can get a prescription for a Pill containing 1 milligram of progestins, one tenth of the original dose, and containing as little as 20 micrograms of estrogen.

From the very beginning, a significant number of women complained of discomfort from the Pill and changed to other methods. When women wanted to discuss the side effects with their doctors, they often met with frustration. It was common for their complaints to be dismissed as exaggerated. In other cases their ailments were just considered the price that women had to pay in return for such an effective contraceptive. The problem was compounded by that fact that female patients were not always informed about the potential for strokes, heart attacks or blood clots while on
the Pill. For the most part sharing "the Pills" risk has become a part of the information provided by health care practitioners who prescribe the Pill.

Today, the safety of the Pill is assumed. However, it is important to remember that the pill contains identical hormones to those found in Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT). HRT has come under question because of the Women's Health Initiative Study showing an increase in breast cancer and heart disease for those women who were on HRT.

In October 20, 2004 headlines read "Birth Control Pill Cuts Cancer, Heart Disease Risk: Study - A new study, yet to be published, suggests women who use oral contraceptives have lower risks of heart disease, stroke, and cancer."

This study has now been denied as accurate by the WHI. Analyses by the WHI have made it clear that the recent findings were not correct?The low dose pill today although deemed to be safe has never undergone a large government-funded study similar to the WHI study on HRT. According to Dr. John R. Lee in his book "What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Breast Cancer" women up to age 21 who use the Pill increase their lifetime risk of Breast Cancer by 600%. Caution when considering the use of Birth Control Pill should still be used.

In summary, consuming the Pill can be one of the risk factor to induce breast cancer. Therefore, we should always bear in mind to reduce the amount of Pill in our life.

If you want to know more about breast cancer, you may read Fight With Breast Cancer and What Is Breast Cancer for details.

What We Should Know About Breast Cancer

From relative obscurity, breast cancer has become the most terrible cause of deaths among women in the world. In the year 2001, about 200,000 cases of breast cancer were reported in United States, making it the second leading cause of cancer death in the US. In fact, it is the most common malignancy problem that is affecting women in North America and Europe today. But what is breast cancer and how do people get it?

Breast cancer develops when malignant tumors in the breast grow and start to affect other tissues in the body. There are still no clear indications how tumors are progressed but what is always observed is that tumor cells usually comes from ducts or glands.

Although women’ health organizations recommend women to massage the breast daily and to feel for any lumps, it may a long time before a cancerous cell get big enough for us to feel it. By that time, it may already be too late. Doctors make use of mammograms for their diagnosis.

All women are actually at risk, with the risk increasing with the presence of some risk factors that are already part of the natural cycle, like, aging. Family history of breast cancer can also significantly affect the prognosis as heredity has been found to play a role. Women who got their periods before they were 12 years old and those who never had or had children after 30 years old are also more likely to develop breast cancer.

There are also risk factors that medical science can help alter such as hormonal problems through replacement therapies. Women are also advised to decrease their consumption of alcoholic drinks, exercise every day and decrease the use of birth control pills. Breastfeeding has been found to lessen the risk of breast cancer development.

Although there are many factors that women can prevent breast cancer from developing, cause and effect relationships between these factors and breast cancer is still debatable. For women who are already at high risk, doctors often recommend a drug called Tamoxifen, which is known to lessen the risk by as much 50% when taken in five years. Still, like all medications, Tamoxifen has side effects such as hot flushes, vaginal discharges and sometimes even blood clots. Taking the drug can also lead to pulmonary emobolus, stroke and uterine cancer, although these are all isolated cases.

Another avenue that women can go to is Vitamin A, which some studies show to be effective in decreasing the risk. Still, research is still in the initial stages and nothing has been proven yet. Other things that are being linked to the breast cancer fight are phytoestrogens, which can be found in soya, Vitamin E, and Vitamin C.

But until something concrete is found in research, the only thing that women can do to ensure that they are safe from breast cancer is early detection. This can be done through daily self-examinations as well as annual checkup and mammogram tests. It is also important that women know the beginnings of breast cancer. Here are some of the signs that they should watch out for.

• Discharges from the nipple
• Lumps in the breast and in the underarms
• Changes in the size of their breasts
• Scaling of the skin of the breast and of the nipple
• Redness in the skin of the breast and of the nipple

Summing up, if those symptoms are observed, it is recommended for us to consult a specialist in order to make sure that we are healthy.

Do you want to know more about what is breast cancer? You may visit my Cancer Research blog.

Recognizing And Battling Breast Cancer

Breast cancer occurs due to the irrepressible growth of cells in the breast that invades the nearby tissues and spreads throughout the body. These collections of irrepressible growth of tissue are called tumors or malignant tumors. However, not all tumors are cancerous.

Breast cancer has been diagnosed in large numbers in North America and Europe. In 2001, about 200,000 cases of breast cancer were diagnosed in the America alone. Every woman has a 1 in 8 risk of developing breast cancer, but the risk of dying from breast cancer is much lower, barely 1 in 28.

The risk of getting breast cancer is generally higher among older women, women with a family history or previous history of breast cancer, women who had radiation therapy in the chest region, women who started their periods before 12 years old, women who had menopause after 50 years old, women who never had children or had them age 30 or older, or women with genetic mutation. In recent times genetic mutations for breast cancer have become a hot topic of research.

The breast cancer tumor has the following symptoms:

• Lump or thickening that appears on the breast or underarm
• Nipple turned inwards followed by colorless discharge
• Red or scaled skin or nipple
• Ridges on the breast skin
• Changes in the breast's shape

If a woman experiences any of these symptoms, it does not necessarily mean she has breast cancer. In such a case she should undergo a breast cancer personal check-up. It is estimated that 95% of breast cancer is detected through personal check-up. The breast cancer personal check-up includes checking for lumps in the breasts after each menstrual period, puckering the skin, and checking for nipple retraction or discharge. For consistent result, every woman should do a breast cancer personal check-up at the same time every month. Various other techniques such as mammography, thermography, ultrasonography, computerized tomography scan etc, can also help detect breast cancer.

Breast cancer treatments include surgery that removes cancerous tissues, with breast conservation therapy (BCT) being one such surgery. Other breast cancer treatments include chemotherapy, radiotherapy, hormonal therapy and biologic therapy. Radiotherapy is a common breast cancer treatment, and radiation treatment and chemotherapy may follow surgery to ensure the destruction of the stray cancer cells.

Summing up, breast cancer can be treated if we can detect it earlier. Doing the annually body checkup is a good move for early detection.

Do you want to know more about what is breast cancer? You may visit my Cancer Research blog.