non-smoking women and estrogen

[john]

Given the recent evidence that HRT may be responsible for some breast cancers or at least be a catalyst.

I wonder if a study will be done on non-smoking women, HDT and lung cancer?

http://www.scienceagogo.com/news/200003 ... _sys.shtml

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,147693,00.html

[Ry]

When I saw this on the news they said that the cases of breast cancer went down dramatically (I think by 14,000) when the news came out about hormone replacement therapy contributing to it. It would be interesting to know if lung cancer rates in women decreased also.

[DrWest]

This issue of why women are more likely to be diagnosed as never-smokers with lung cancer has really blown into the lung cancer scene over the last couple of years, but only to the point where we're finally asking good questions. I'm writing a post at my website in the next day or so about a study being done to evaluate the genetic differences between lung cancers developing in men vs. women and smokers and never-smokers. We won't learn anything about the results for a few years, but we can only start getting answers when we actually ask the right questions.

[blaze100]

My BAC tumor was tested and was not estrogen receptive. I know breast cancer can be.

But then I was reading there are different kinds of estrogen and they only test for one type. Barb

[Joe B]

Dr West, I thought I read recently a post here about the news media reports saying that women never smokers being more likely than men never smokers to get lung cancer turned out to be untrue? Are the rates actually the same?

There is something to this Estrogen thing . There was a big drop in reported breast cancer cases based on the drop in Estrogen replacement use.

[chloesmom]

Ok, so here's my question....I had an ER+ breast tumor in 2001, had it removed, took radiation and also took tamoxifen (a drug that blocks estrogen receptors, at least in breast tissue).

In 2003, the lung tumor was discovered and removed. It was an adeno tumor, but to my knowledge, was never tested for ER+ or ER-.

Tamoxifen is normally given for 5 years and then discontinued as it's effectiveness is supposed to be lasting another 10-15 years.

My question, and I do have one, is would it be wise for someone like me to continue with the tamoxifen indefinately?

Cindy

[john]

Isn't it fairly standard to go on aromatase inhibitors after tamoxifen, because tamoxifen stops working

[Sis]

This topic is extremely interesting to me. My sister who was a never-smoker swore that HRT had something to do with her getting lung cancer. The more I read on this topic, the more it seems like a real possibility. If anyone has any more information, I would love to hear about it. Ellie (Sis)

[john]

Jill Siegfried, PhD. is one researcher that has been looking into this for a while

http://www.upci.upmc.edu/news/upci_news ... gfried.htm

[blaze100]

Yes, I thought this article about Jill was good too.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06086/677174-114.stm

Barb

[DrWest]

to speak to Joe's point, there's still some controversy about the increased frequency about never-smokers being disproportionately female, but there's almost no complex scientific issue in which you can't find some counter-argument. Often the general media, especially TV spots, oversimplify a complex situation so much that it provides misinformation, so it's hard to use them for any firm sense either way.

The real controversy is whether women are more likely to develop lung cancer compared with men exposed to a similar amount of tobacco (or none for either men or women). I'm not an expert on this still developing field, but we used to think definitely yes, but I understand that this is at least being more carefully questioned. There's no real controversy about whether there are more women than men in the population of never-smokers with lung cancer. It's almost always 60-70% women among never-smoker series, but it the remainder of lung cancer it's usually 55% men. No matter what country or what study you're looking at.

There's no direct evidence that hormone therapies influence risk of developing lung cancer or outcomes after it's present. But it's a very new field, and you're right to point to Dr. Siegfried, who is probably the most identifiable leader of this line of questioning.