Survival rates jump 80% with new treatment

Clinical trial finds drug combination that might stop metastasized prostate cancer from worsening

A new study shows that an experimental drug combo that controls hormones may halt the progression of prostate cancer.

Dr. Chris Sweeney

A clinical trial led by Dr. Christopher Sweeney at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, according to a story in the October-November issue of AARP Magazine, determined that survival rates could jump as much as 80 percent when the combination is used.

Sweeney's study, the AARP article notes, focused on what can happen when enzalutamide, an oral drug that blocks hormone reception, is combined with testosterone-suppressing medication. 

That study, like other research, was based on the notion that "testosterone and other male hormones can fuel the growth of cancer cells." 

What was being sought were ways "to either suppress the production of hormones or stop cells from receiving them."

Sweeney's study, the story asserts, did both.

The AARP article centered on one particular participant in the study, Dr. John Hammel, a psychiatrist who was diagnosed in 2016 with late-stage prostate cancer that had already begun to metastasize.

Hammel's quoted as saying "I was despondent — I didn't think I'd live a year."

That attitude made him, after initial skepticism, jump at the chance when his oncologist told him about the "real treatment" that was available, "not just palliative care." 

During the study, Hammel reportedly saw his PSA test numbers "drop from 2,000 to 450 to four and then to undetectable for six months" — and then stay there.

The trial, the story says, helped him start living again, "instead of focusing on his prognosis." 

For more information about clinical trials and their results, check out "Rollercoaster: How a man can survive his partner's breast cancer," a VitalityPress book that I, Woody Weingarten, aimed at male caregivers.

Oncologists told about chances of recurrence

Pregnancy after breast cancer is now believed safe, lead author of European study says

Breast cancer survivors who want to have children may be sighing with relief.

According to a recent story by Marilynn Marchione of the Associated Press, a study of 1,207 women in Europe shows those who became pregnant after their diagnoses "were no more likely to have their cancer come back than those who did not have a baby."

This was true, the story added, "even if their cancers were the type fueled by hormones, which surge during pregnancy and theoretically might spur a recurrence."

Results of the study were discussed at an American Society of Clinical Oncology conference in Chicago.

Dr. Matteo Lambertini

The study's lead author, Dr. Matteo Lambertini of the Jules Bordet Institute in Brussels, Belgium, was quoted as saying the test results show that "pregnancy after breast cancer can be considered safe."

Dr. Richard Schilsky, chief medical officer for ASCO, agreed.

Marchione quoted him as saying the results indicate, "fairly convincingly," that women needn't worry. 

More and more women are being diagnosed with breast cancer in their childbearing years, perhaps an outgrowth of "the average age of moms…rising in the United States," the AP story says.

In fact, it notes, "about 11 percent of new breast cancer cases in the U.S. are in women under 45."

The story also reported that a big study now underway "in the U.S. and other countries is taking this research one step further, testing whether it's safe for breast cancer survivors who want to get pregnant to temporarily suspend taking the hormone-blocking drugs like tamoxifen usually recommended for five years after initial treatment."

More details about studies relating to the disease can be found in "Rollercoaster: How a man can survive his partner's breast cancer," a VitalityPress book I, Woody Weingarten, aimed at male caregivers.

Contraceptive pills, IUDs endanger women

Modern birth control methods hike breast cancer risk just like older ones, study finds

Newer birth control methods that release hormones can raise women's risk for breast cancer — just as the older ones did.

That's the conclusion of a new study recently reported by Ronnie Caryn Rabin in The New York Times.

The findings, based on following nearly 1.8 million Danish women of childbearing age for more than a decade, corroborates conventional wisdom that birth control pills and IUDs can be problematic despite the added risk being small.

The Times piece indicates the study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, "upends widely held assumptions about modern contraceptives for younger generations of women," many of whom have believed that the newer contraceptives "are much safer than those taken by their mothers or grandmothers, which had higher doses of estrogen."

According to Rabin's story, "the research also suggests that the hormone progestin — widely used in today's birth control methods — may be raising breast cancer risk."

Dr. Marisa Weiss

The Times piece quotes Dr. Marisa Weiss, an oncologist who founded the breastcancer.org website but who was not involved in the study, as believing the research is important "because we had no idea how the modern day pills compared to the old-fashioned pills in terms of breast cancer risk, and we didn't know anything about IUDs. Gynecologists just assumed that a lower dose of hormone meant a lower risk of cancer. But the same elevated risk is there."

The findings show "a significant public health concern," she says — even though, according to the Times, the study failed to "take into account factors like physical activity, breast feeding and alcohol consumption, which may also influence breast cancer risk."

Officials at the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists plan to evaluate the new findings but, the Times says, still emphasized that hormonal contraceptives are for many women "among the most safe, effective and accessible options available."

Weiss, however, suggested in Rabin's story that, because risk increases with age, "older women may want to consider switching to a hormone-free birth control method, like a diaphragm, an IUD that does not release hormones, or condoms. 'It's not like you don't have a choice,' she said. 'Why not pursue another option?'"

Rabin also quoted Lina Steinrud Mørch, Ph.D., the study's lead author and a senior researcher at the University of Copenhagen, to the effect that the findings — which also showed "the risk increased the longer women used contraceptives, suggesting the relationship is causal" — presented "a very clear picture…very convincing."

According to Mørch, "among those who used hormones for five years, an increased breast cancer risk persisted even after they discontinued use."

And women who stayed on hormones 10 years or more experienced a jump in risk of 38 percent.

Since researchers originally had expected to find "a smaller increase in risk because today we have lower doses of estrogen in the hormone contraceptives," says Mørch, "it was surprising that we found [the] association."

The study concluded that although "hormone users over all experienced a 20 percent increase in the relative risk of breast cancer compared to nonusers…the additional risk would result in comparatively few additional cases of breast cancer." 

More information on risk factors for the disease can be found in "Rollercoaster: How a man can survive his partner's breast cancer," a VitalityPress book I, Woody Weingarten, aimed at male caregivers.