Separate studies have found that aspirin and tamoxifen, a drug initially developed for breast cancer, may be effective treatments for prostate cancer.

One study found that among men with prostate cancer, those who took aspirin for other medical conditions were nearly half as likely to die of their cancer as the men who didn’t take aspirin.

The study involved nearly 6,000 men of which about one-third were taking aspirin or other anticoagulants. Over 10-years, the researchers calculated, the prostate cancer death rate for those taking aspirin was 3 percent, compared with 8 percent for those who did not.

The aspirin users were also significantly less likely to experience a recurrence of prostate cancer or have the disease spread to the bones.

This research adds to the growing body of evidence that aspirin may be effective for many types of cancer throughout the body. Aspirin use has already been found to have an effect on colon cancer.

As for how aspirin works on cancer, Dr. Otis Brawley of the American Cancer Society said he believes that aspirin’s anti-inflammatory properties may play a role in the prevention of both heart disease and cancer.

“Inflammation may not cause a cancer, but it may promote cancer — it may be the fertilizer that makes it grow,” Dr. Brawley said.

Tamoxifen for Side-Effects

In the tamoxifen study, researchers analyzed the results of four independent clinical trials that examined the use of tamoxifen to manage the side effects of a common prostate cancer treatment, androgen-suppression therapy.

Androgen-suppression, which blocks testosterone activity, can slow the progression of advanced prostate cancer. But these drugs can cause side effects such as breast enlargement and pain that may stop men from undergoing the treatment.

During the one-year study, the researchers found that tamoxifen reduced the risk of breast enlargement and breast pain in men at quarterly exams compared to men who did not take tamoxifen. The drug was also minimized painful breast symptoms better than radiation therapy or treatment with the aromatase inhibitor anastrozole, which is also used to treat breast cancer.

As a result, few of the men treated with tamoxifen stopped taking their medication during their year of treatment. And there were no significant side effects of tamoxifen reported.

Sources:

PubMed

New York Times

BMC Medicine

Researchers investigating the association between soy food intake and breast cancer outcomes among survivors found that soy food consumption did not increase the risk of cancer recurrence or death among survivors of breast cancer.

The research was part of a multi-national collaborative study, the After Breast Cancer Pooling Project, which involved over 16,000 women between the ages of 20 and 83 years who had invasive primary breast cancer.

The researchers assessed the intake of soy isoflavones among the women after breast cancer diagnosis using food frequency questionnaires. Breast cancer outcomes were assessed, on average, nine years after cancer diagnosis.

Women in the highest intake category of more than 23 mg of isoflavones per day had a 9 percent reduced risk of mortality and a 15 percent reduced risk for recurrence, compared to those who had the lowest intake level. The average daily soy isoflavone intake among U.S. women was 3.2 mg; however, in a group of women in China, the amount was significantly higher at 45.9 mg.

The study appears to ease concerns about the safety of soy food for women with breast cancer because soy foods contain large amounts of isoflavones that are known to bind to estrogen receptors and have both estrogen-like and anti-estrogenic effects. One concern was that isoflavones might increase the risk of cancer recurrence among breast cancer patients because they have low estrogen levels due to cancer treatment. Another issue in question was whether isoflavones interfere with tamoxifen treatment as they both bind to estrogen receptors.

So, for now it appears women with a history of breast cancer can enjoy soy.

Sources:

American Association for Cancer Research

For more than three decades the go-to drug for breast cancer patients that interferes with the activity of estrogen, tamoxifen may also be valuable in reducing the risk of death for folks fighting lung cancer.

Scientists monitored the health of more than 6,600 female patients registered with the Geneva Cancer Registry in Switzerland, who had been diagnosed with breast cancer between 1980-2003, until the end of 2007 for the incidence and death from lung cancer. Nearly half (3,066) of those patients participating in the study received anti-estrogen therapy.

Overall, just 40 patients developed lung cancer, statistically small by any measure and not much different statistically between women participating in the study and cases among the general population. The real difference -- 87 percent -- was the declining number of cases leading to death from lung cancer while taking anti-estrogen therapy among patients in the study group compared to the general population.

BTW, check with your doctor to ensure you're not taking a drug -- an SSRI like Prozac or Paxil -- that suppresses the CYP2DG enzyme, a critical trigger that allows tamoxifen to do its job.

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Cancer January 24, 2011

ScienceDaily January 24, 2011

Bloomberg Businessweek January 24, 2011

Despite the obvious benefits of taking daily medications every day -- especially for those fighting cancer -- you may be very surprised how many folks are skipping or stopping them altogether. Try more than half, according to a study of some 8,800 female patients fighting stages 1-3 hormone-sensitive breast cancer who stopped taking hormone therapy on their own.

Just 49 percent of the women surveyed over the 11-year span of the study completed their regimen of hormone therapy, and 72 percent of this smaller group completed it on time. Among the interesting commonalities shared by patients who took hormone therapy for 4.5 years: They were married, had undergone therapy before, had longer intervals between prescription refills and were of Asian/Pacific Islander descent.

Conversely, patients gave up on hormone therapy for a variety of reasons, including high costs, not understanding the benefits and side effects (hot flashes, fatigue and joint pain). The latter isn't surprising at all, considering some 40 percent of female patients taking aromatase inhibitors experience joint pain and the side effects connected with taking tamoxifen (especially in tandem with other drugs) may be severe, lead researcher Dr. Dawn Hershman told USA Today.

Even worse, patients under age 40 were more likely than any other group to drop therapy, even though their life expectancy was the longest. Some experts point out children -- wanting them or caring for them -- may be a factor in recidivism rates among younger patients too.

I don't mind sounding like a broken record when reminding you to go see your doctor before make any changes to your treatment… Please?

Journal of Clinical Oncology June 28, 2010

healthfinder.gov June 29, 2010

USA Today June 28, 2010

Chemotherapy can be a double-edged sword: It can kill cancerous cells, unfortunately, at the expense of healthy ones (for example, bone marrow cells). Texas A&M scientists may have found a way to trigger the eradication of breast cancer cells without harming normal cells, with the help of organic, phenolic compounds found in plum and peach extracts.

Breast cancer cells (including the most aggressive kind) and normal cells were treated with extracts from two popular commercial varieties of both fruits: The Black Splendor plum and Rich Lady peach.

Specifically, the two phenolic acid compounds that eliminated cancer cells without harming normal cells -- neochlorogenic and chlorogenic -- are very common in fruits but found in far greater levels in peaches and plums, both stone fruits.

Makes you wonder if there's any chemical connection between the makeup of these phenolic acid compounds and the derivative of the herb feverfew that prevents resistance to tamoxifen, the go-to drug for breast cancer patients.

Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, Vol. 57, No. 12, pp. 5219-5226, June 24, 2009

AgriLife News June 2, 2010

If you're taking medications -- for example, a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) such as fluoxetine (Prozac) or paroxetine (Paxil) -- or other antipsychotic or cardiac drugs and you're a female patient taking tamoxifen, you may want to schedule an appointment with your doctor very soon.

The problem: Some drugs suppress the presence of the CYP2DG enzyme, a critical trigger that allows the liver to convert tamoxifen into the more active endoxifen that, in turn, may prevent breast cancer or a repeat battle with this frightening disease.

Follow-up research to previous studies conducted at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine that identified fluoxetene and paroxetene as potentially harmful for breast cancer patients taking tamoxifen has expanded the list of drugs inhibiting CYP2D6 levels to include drugs that treat infectious diseases, depression, psychosis and heart problems. (Check the Medscape link below for a full list of drugs that affect CYP2DG levels and many alternatives.)

As a result of this research, the Mayo Clinic has been testing breast cancer patients for the CYP2DG enzyme before prescribing tamoxifen in excess of three years, considered a controversial practice among some experts.

Still, there's no question, avoiding drugs that interact poorly with tamoxifen is the best course of action for patients taking tamoxifen. For your own peace of mind, however, PLEASE do your homework and talk to your doctor before making any changes to your treatment regimen.

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Journal of Clinical Oncology, Vol. 28, No. 16, pp. 2768-2776, June 1, 2010

Medscape May 5, 2010 Free Subscription/Registration Required

HealthCentral June 1, 2009

A natural compound derived from the herb feverfew may prevent or curtail resistance to tamoxifen, the go-to drug prescribed for breast cancer patients.

Why are cancer researchers so interested in the feverfew derivative parthenolide? Of the 70 percent of the newly diagnosed cases of breast cancer that are classified as estrogen receptor positive (ER+), half of them don't respond to tamoxifen, a drug designed to block estrogen from binding to a cell's protein receptor.

Based on previous research, tamoxifen resistance is governed by the overexpression of the protein complex nuclear factor kappa B (NF-kB) in ER+ breast cancer cases. After conducting a battery of tests, researchers discovered parthenolide blocked the action of NF-kB, making cells more sensitive to tamoxifen.

Despite their success, scientists still don't understand the "hideously complex process" that enables the overexpression of NF-kB or any other cellular adaptations to trigger the resistance of tamoxifen.

Nevertheless, it's encouraging to discover something as natural and ubiquitous to our lives and environment as a member of the sunflower family can have such a powerful effect on the drugs we take to battle cancer.

The FASEB Journal February 12, 2010

Georgetown University Medical Center February 15, 2010

Long-term breast cancer survivors may be alarmed by new risks associated with the commonly prescribed drug tamoxifen, uncovered by scientists studying the history of long-term tamoxifen use among some 1,100 female breast cancer survivors between ages 40-79 from 1990-2005.

Not unexpectedly, patients who took tamoxifen for at least five years enjoyed a reduced risk of a less-aggressive kind of second breast cancer (estrogen-receptor or ER positive breast cancer) compared to those receiving a placebo by 60 percent. Moreover, tamoxifen users were 40 percent less prone to develop a new tumor in the second breast.

On the downside, tamoxifen use by breast cancer survivors over the long term increased their risks of ER negative second cancer – tumors that weren’t estrogen-sensitive -- by a whopping 440 percent.

To the good, however, while these tumors were harder to treat, their occurrence was rare: Only one out of every seven patients developed them. What’s more, patients who had taken tamoxifen for four years or less weren’t affected at all.

Despite these latest findings, the American Cancer Society doesn’t advocate changing drug protocols or restricting use of the go-to breast cancer drug at all, noting, “The net benefit for tamoxifen is huge.”

Cancer Research August 25, 2009

Science Daily August 26, 2009

New York Times August 25, 2009

WebMD August 25, 2009