Beating Breast Cancer | Symptoms And Breast Cancer Treatment

Hot Flashes in Breast Cancer Patients

Here's an article that Gordon recently wrote for another website. We've reproduced it here because it's one of the most common health questions that breast cancer sufferers ask about. Do you have hot flushes or hot flashes? Well, if you do, there may be some hope of relief. Read on .....

Hot Flushes in Breast Cancer Patients
By Gordon Cameron

Hot flushes or hot flashes in breast cancer patients are a common problem.

Many breast cancers are sensitive to circulating estrogen levels and for many women, suppressing the production or the effects of estrogen on the body is a major strategy in their treatment. A lack of estrogen will produce symptoms identical to the menopause and the most unpleasant of these are hot flushes, sweats or hot flashes.

A new research project has looked at the effect of a drug called Megace or megesterol acetate in treating hot flushes in women with breast cancer.

They studied nearly three hundred patients with breast cancer who had completed surgery and chemotherapy and at least four months of tamoxifen treatment for their condition.

Before they took part in the study the women had to have experienced at least ten hot flashes of any severity or at least five severe episodes each week.When the research data was looked at, eighty five percent of the women who took part were on tamoxifen, and forty percent had more than sixty hot flushes per week. Three quarters of them had experienced sweats and flashes for more than six months before they started in the study.

The women were divided into three groups. One group were given a placebo tablet, one group got 20mg of Megace and the other received 40mg of Megace each day. They all took their medicine for three months. A good outcome was defined as completion of treatment with a seventy five percent or greater reduction in hot flushes from that womens starting point.

If the treatment they were on worked well the women were given another three months of the same medication and dose. If they did not get benefit after three months then they were given 20mg a day of Megace on top of what they were already taking.

Reduction of flushings of seventy fiver percent or more was reported in

• only 14% of those women who were on placebo medication
• 65% of those women who were on the 20 mg dose
• 48% of the women who were on the 40 mg dose of drug

In addition, most successes at three months were maintained at six months in seventy seven percent of the women on 20 mg and in eighty one percent of the women on 40 mg per day - but there was no significant impact on other menopausal symptoms like vaginal dryness or joint pains.

For the women taking Megace the main side effects were fluid retention and weight gain, fatigue and sometimes mild depression.

The researchers concluded that Megace was very successful in alleviating sweats and flushes in breast cancer survivors with lasting results at 6 months. They recommended the twenty milligram dose for most women and said that this treatment should be considered for all women with menopause flushing symptoms after breast cancer treatment.

Gordon Cameron is a physician in Edinburgh Scotland. He has a special interest in the symptoms of breast cancer.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Gordon_Cameron
http://EzineArticles.com/?Hot-Flushes-in-Breast-Cancer-Patients&id=1294228

Labels: breast-cancer, breast-cancer-symptoms, cancer-support, hot-flushes

posted by Marjory @ 8:25 PM 0 comments

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Mammogram - What is a Mammogram

What is a mammogram - do you know the answer?

A mammogram can help to detect breast cancer at the earliest stage and it's an important part of our fight against the breast cancer epidemic - whether or not symptoms of breast cancer are present.

Some of these tests are performed when there is nothing at all to find on breast examination - no lumps and no suspicious problem areas. This is called a screening mammogram. Some women find the procedure uncomfortable - either in the breast itself or they experience shoulder pain because of the arm position. Any discomfort however is short lived and the procedure overall is not too unpleasant.

The other kind of mammogram is called a diagnostic mammogram and this is done when a screening test shows a suspicious area or when the person is aware of a lump in the breast or of some other symptom that could relate to breast cancer.

New digital techniques allow the images to be enhanced and make the screening and diagnostic tests easier for doctors to read. Digital mammography is probably more accurate at picking up problems in women under the age of fifty, or for those who have not yet had their menopause.
The latest versions of breast cancer guidelines say that if a woman over the age or thirty discovers a lump in the breast then both a diagnostic mammography test and an ultrasound scan of the breast should be performed. Ultrasound is a good test to show if a lump is solid or full of fluid - like a simple cyst might be for example. A lump with fluid in it looks dark or black on ultrasound - a solid area looks white because of the way that the sound waves from the ultrasound bounce off it.

When a breast mass is solid, its alignment and shape provide clues as to whether it is benign or cancerous. Usually a benign mass is horizontally aligned with smooth borders, while one that is malignant is vertically aligned with irregular borders. The nature of a solid mass can be clarified by performing an image-guided core-needle biopsy. During this procedure, ultrasound or mammography is used to help a radiologist extract a tissue sample from the mass with a needle. A pathologist evaluates the sample.

But ... for some women who have found a lump in the breast, both the mammogram and the ultrasound might be normal. This is obviously good news but if the lump persists then doctors advise having repeated checks - and in rare cases, if the lump is still present after a month or two - a minor operation to remove it or biopsy it should be performed.

Mammograms and breast ultrasound can save lives. So can self examination of the breasts. When did you last check yourself? Are you breast aware?

Labels: mammogram, mammography, what-is-a-mammogram

posted by Marjory @ 6:07 AM 0 comments

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Symptoms of breast cancer

The Symptoms of Breast Cancer

I often get emails or have comments posted on this breast cancer blog site asking about the symptoms of breast cancer.

Here's a brief summary but please remember - if you have any doubts at all then please go see your doctor for a check as soon as possible.

In most women, breast cancer is first noticed as a painless lump in the breast.

Other symptoms of breast cancer may include:

changes in the size or shape of a breast
dimpling of the skin of the breast
a thickening in the breast tissue
a nipple becoming inverted (turned in)
a lump or thickening behind the nipple
a rash (like eczema) affecting the nipple
a bloodstained discharge from the nipple (this is very rare)
a swelling or lump in the armpit.

Please remember that a pain in the breast is rarely a symptom of breast cancer. In fact, many healthy women find that their breasts feel lumpy and tender before a period.

But some types of benign breast lumps can be painful - so I'm going to say it again and this time in big writing:

Labels: a-lump-in-the-breast, breast-cancer, breast-cancer-symptoms, symptoms-of-breast-cancer

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