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Breast Cancer Patients May Have Better Odds if They're Pregnant
Filed under: News, In The News, Weird But True, New In Pop Culture, Health, Research Reveals
Getting breast cancer when you're pregnant isn't a death sentence. Credit: Jose Luis Pelaez/Getty Images
Believe it or not, the news could be worse.
Learning you have cancer, of course, is never good news. But if you're going to get breast cancer, pregnancy may strangely be the best time to have it.
Researchers in Texas followed 225 women treated at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston between 1989 and 2009 and found 74 percent of the women diagnosed with breast cancer during pregnancy are still alive five years after their diagnosis.
The survival drops to 55.7 percent among breast cancer patients who were not pregnant when they were diagnosed.
The Los Angeles Times reports longer-term survival rates might also be higher among pregnant cancer patients, but researchers tell the paper those results are less clear than the five-year statistics.
The researchers, led by Dr. Richard L. Theriault, presented their findings Oct. 1 at the American Society of Clinical Oncology's meeting in Washington, D.C.
Hopefully, Theriault tells the Times, the study will help allay women's fears that pregnancy hormones accelerate breast cancer. Until very recently, he adds, pregnant women who got breast cancer were urged to get abortions or wait until giving birth to begin aggressive treatment.
The cancer, women were told, also put their unborn babies at risk.
According to the Times, Theriault was among the researchers who offered strong evidence in 1999 that breast cancer doesn't harm developing fetuses. So now, doctors can begin chemotherapy as soon as the first trimester of pregnancy is over and resume treatment with radiation, follow-on chemotherapy or surgery after the baby's birth.
The new study is as yet unpublished and considered preliminary, but Dr. Jennifer Litton of M.D. Anderson Cancer Center tells the Times the results are nonetheless astounding.
Litton adds researchers hoped to find pregnant breast cancer patients have at least the same survival odds as nonpregnant patients. To find they have even better odds is exciting, she says.
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ReaderComments (Page 1 of 1)
10-03-2010 @ 9:24AM
Chris said...It's nice that they finally studied this, because it has been known for years that breast cancer risk is heavily influenced by your lifetime exposure to estrogen. Since pregnancy is a low estrogen state and breast cancer tumors pretty much need estrogen to grow this makes perfect sense.
Reply
10-03-2010 @ 11:29AM
john mcintyre said...During pregnancy the placental trophoblast expresses phosphatidylserine. Along with receptors for diferric transferrin, this sets the stage for unmasking of redox-reactive autoantibodies, antiphosphatidylserine being one such autoantibody. Interestingly, the breast cancer cells express the same combination of phosphatidylserine and transferrin receptors. Thus, there is reason to suspect that breast cancer cells can be attacked by the body's redox-reactive antibodies and immunologically rejected.
Reply
10-03-2010 @ 11:52AM
Cynthia said...More needs to be done to promote breastfeeding as a way of preventing cancer.The research is out there that it does, particularly in women whose genetics predispose them to breast cancer, but that research didn't get needed publicity. (Obviously, I am writing about prevention, babies need to be protected from drugs which could be prescribed to a new mom fighting cancer).
Policy is more geared to paying for mammograms to detect it early, rather than pure prevention. The Scandinavian countries are finding that more frequent mammograms damage cells and acan promote breast cancer.
Family leave policies that give equal time to fathers do not help mothers who would like to breastfeed but need to get back to work.
This might seem fair, but is not in the best interest of the child or mother- or ultimately, to the father.
Reply
10-05-2010 @ 12:29AM
Linda said...From personal experience, I feel that it's incorrect and harmful to say that more needs to be done to promote breastfeeding babies "as a way to prevent" breast cancer. I breastfeed both of my children when they were babies. I still developed breast cancer in my 40's. My surgical oncologist said that I did everything right to try to reduce my risk including breastfeeding. It would be better to say that breastfeeding may "reduce" the risk of getting breast cancer.
10-03-2010 @ 12:24PM
Angiebaby said...It has been know for some time that if your breast cancer is estrogen-sensitive, meds (like Tamoxifen) can be given to compete with cancer cells for receptor cells, thereby holding the cander at bay. Could it be that natural estrogen increases during pregnancy work the same way? Or could there be a tie between HCG (Human Chorionic Gonadotropin) which is only in the blood stream during pregnancy which so strongly affects the growth & spread of breast (and maybe other) cancers? Wouldn't that be exciting! HCG as a potential cancer treatment? I hope they are researching this because it could be harvested, or maybe synthetically re-created, and easily tested!
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10-15-2010 @ 1:17AM
Vanessa Gregorio said...I agree I am a mother of four and breast fed our first 3 children. Breast Feeding " May" reduce the chances and Breast feeding is not for every woman.I was diagnosed with Breast Cancer @ the age of 39 while 4 months pregnant with our 4th child and underwent a Bi-lateral Mastectomy and 4 treatement of chemo while pregnant and then did 4 addtional treatment of chemo after he was born. he was induced 3 weeks early and was perfectly healthy! Praise God and I was Her 2 + and was on herceptin for 1 year! This drug was not available 10 years ago! Life goes on! Continue the fight for a cure. If anyone is in need or has a similar situation please feel freee to check out my website www. caringbridge.org/visit/vanessarg
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3-03-2011 @ 2:28AM
lisa said...I always heard that breastfeeding was a way to prevent breast cancer. Great read I will pass this along
http://www.yourcancernews.com
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