A Treatment Option for Premenopausal Women?
One of the problems a young woman with breast cancer faces is the fact that so many drugs are specifically indicated for post-menopausal women.
But today it was announced that zoledronic acid (or a drug called Zometa) which is used to treat bone metastases and recently approved to treat osteoporosis proved to significantly reduce the risk of recurrence in early-stage breast cancer for premenopausal women undergoing ovarian suppression and hormone therapy.
Zometa, a drug originally approved by the FDA to treat bone loss in patients undergoing chemotherapy and to reduce bone fractures in osteoporosis patients, might also reduce the risk of disease recurrence in premenopausal breast cancer patients, an Austrian study suggests.
The study, released today at the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting in Chicago, looked at 1,803 patients with early-stage breast cancer who were undergoing ovarian suppression, a treatment used to prematurely stop menstruation in order to induce menopause in women with hormone-sensitive tumors. By inducing menopause to lower estrogen levels, these hormone-sensitive tumors usually stop growing.
I was one of the women with a hormone-sensitive tumor who underwent ovarian suppression — before my hysterectomy/oopherectomy that is. So this is HUGE news to me.
If you are a premenopausal woman looking to suppress your ovaries … ask your doctor about this drug. Zometa. Then report back to me, would ya?
Is this a possibility for any of my Pink Ribbon Readers?
(Source: ABC News)
Tags: breast cancer, cancer, Pink, pink ribbon, post-menopausal, post-menopause, postmenopausal, premenopausalRelated Stories
POSTED IN: News Items, Research
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