Cancer News Divides Locals

By SANDY DAVIS

The dramatic news Thursday that breast cancer rates in the U.S. plummeted in 2003 with experts saying the decline might be because older women stopped using hormones has been met with a mixed reaction in Baton Rouge.

“It’s still early and we need to see if this information holds true,” said Dr. David Hanson, a medical oncologist with Louisiana Hematology Oncology Associates in Baton Rouge. “If it’s true, there will be fewer cases of breast cancer as the years past, and it’s rare in this field to have such good news.”

The announcement was made at the 29th Annual San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium by researchers Dr. Donald Berry and Peter Ravdin who conducted the study at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.

Their findings came on the heels of a 2002 federal study called the Women’s Health Initiative which found there was a correlation between hormone replacement therapy in postmenopausal women and breast cancer. HRT provides both estrogen and sometimes progestin hormones to women who are postmenopausal.

After the July 2002 announcement, millions of women stopped using the hormones.

The M.D. Anderson study looked at breast cancer rates from 1990 to 2003 and found a 7 percent decline in all age groups in 2003 and a 12 percent decline in women 50 to 69 years old.

“It is the largest single drop in breast cancer incidence within a single year I am aware of,” Ravdin said.

Hanson said the largest decline was in women ages 50 to 69 diagnosed with estrogen receptor positive breast cancer. This form is dependent on hormones for tumor growth.

“It is my understanding that there is prescription-filling data that corroborates that many women did stop taking HRTs,” Hanson said. “And that’s interesting in that the kind of cancer that appeared to diminish is the kind of cancer that uses hormones as fuel.

“So, it’s a reasonable correlation,” Hanson said to assume that that hormones are responsible for the decline.

Dr. Will Russell, a radiation oncologist at the Pennington Cancer Center in Baton Rouge said, “Only time will tell if this data holds up.”

Russell said at the very least women and their physicians will be having more serious discussions about the risks of HRT.

“Physicians make decisions on what treatments to use based on known risks and benefits,” Russell said. “This new information will certainly change that discussion.”

He did say women should not abruptly stop taking hormones.

“I think many women are going to panic over this news,” he said. “But it can be difficult to deal with the symptoms of hormone cessation. Women should talk to their physicians before they do anything.”

But Dr. Beverly Ogden, a pathologist at Woman’s Hospital in Baton Rouge, was not pleased with the results of the research. She called it flawed and added that it was “irresponsible” to release the information to the public.

“How can anything have such an enormous effect in such a short period of time,” she said. “They’re saying from 2002 to 2003 this happened because women stopped HRT. Cancer does not develop in six months. It is more like five years.”

However, researchers Berry and Ravdin did caution that they’re not certain of what caused the decline. They said they did consider whether other factors might be involved, including decreased use of mammography screenings and changes in the use of anti-inflammatory agents.

“But only the potential impact of HRT was strong enough to explain the effect,” Berry said.

Ogden is still skeptical.

“Cancer is not a one-step thing,” she said. “It’s a series of genetic mistakes. Everyone who smokes is not going to get lung cancer. Everyone who takes hormone therapy is not going to get breast cancer.”

And Ogden said she’s concerned women will continue to stop using hormone replacement therapy.

“Hormone therapy helps prevent bone loss and is protective of hearts,” she said.

“If they stop HRT, we’re going to see a decreased life expectancy in women,” she added. “Heart disease is a much larger threat to women’s health than breast cancer.”

She said one out of two people die from heart disease and not breast cancer.

Ogden said releasing the information was a mistake.

“It was irresponsible to put it out to the public,” she said. “It just scares people. People are going to make decisions based on this information and there isn’t enough scientific information to base decisions.”

(c) 2006 Advocate; Baton Rouge, La.. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.