plus 3, Short-term radiation therapy works well for breast cancer patients - New Kerala |
- Short-term radiation therapy works well for breast cancer patients - New Kerala
- Paxil blocks tamoxifen, lowers survival odds against breast cancer - WSFA
- Popular breast cancer drug, Paxil don't mix: study - Toronto Sun
- Popular antidepressant 'cancels out' effect of breast cancer drug - Daily Telegraph
| Short-term radiation therapy works well for breast cancer patients - New Kerala Posted: 11 Feb 2010 12:27 AM PST Message from fivefilters.org: If you can, please donate to the full-text RSS service so we can continue developing it.
London, Feb 11 : Researchers in Canada have found that an intense three-week course of radiation therapy is just as effective as the standard five-week regimen for women with early-stage breast cancer.
In the study, lead researcher Dr. Tim Whelan, a professor of oncology of the Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine at McMaster University, and colleagues found that women who received the accelerated therapy had a low risk of the breast cancer for as long as 12 years after treatment. The results are to be published in the Feb. 11 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), and have been presented to a meeting of the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology. The study concluded a shorter, more intense course of therapy is as safe and effective as the standard treatment for select women who have undergone breast-conserving surgery. Women who receive a three-week treatment - called accelerated hypofractionated whole-breast irradiation - have a low risk of side effects and recurrence of the cancer more than decade after treatment. It is just as effective as the standard five-week course of radiation following surgery to remove the malignancy. "This is win-win: shorter intense treatment is better for the patient and less costly to provide," said Dr. Whelan, who is also a radiation oncologist at the Juravinski Cancer Centre at Hamilton Health Sciences. --ANI
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| Paxil blocks tamoxifen, lowers survival odds against breast cancer - WSFA Posted: 07 Feb 2010 03:55 PM PST Message from fivefilters.org: If you can, please donate to the full-text RSS service so we can continue developing it. By Steven Reinberg HealthDay Reporter MONDAY, Feb. 8 (HealthDay News) -- Women with breast cancer who take both tamoxifen and the antidepressant Paxil may increase their risk of dying because Paxil reduces tamoxifen's effectiveness, Canadian researchers report. "Paxil can deprive women of the benefit of tamoxifen, especially when it is used in combination with tamoxifen for a long time," said lead researcher Dr. David Juurlink, division head of clinical pharmacology and toxicology at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Center in Toronto. "Patients who are on tamoxifen and who require an antidepressant should probably be given something different," he added. Paroxetine (Paxil) is a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) that significantly inhibits an enzyme called cytochrome P450 2D6, which is needed to metabolize tamoxifen into its active form. But this dampening effect was not seen with certain other SSRIs evaluated, including citalopram (Celexa) and venlafaxine (Effexor), the researchers said. Patients taking Paxil and tamoxifen should talk with their doctors about changing their antidepressant, Juurlink said. But he advised against abruptly discontinuing Paxil. "There is a very real danger to stopping Paxil suddenly. There is a well-described withdrawal syndrome and the risk of depression becoming more severe," he said. In addition, any transition to another antidepressant should be done gradually over several weeks, he said. The report is published in the Feb. 8 online edition of the British Medical Journal. For the study, Juurlink's group looked at the medical records of 2,430 women with breast cancer who began taking tamoxifen between 1993 and 2005. About 30 percent of the women were also taking an antidepressant, Paxil being the most common. Antidepressants are often prescribed to reduce hot flashes associated with tamoxifen in addition to easing symptoms of depression. Paxil plus tamoxifen was linked to an increased risk of dying from breast cancer, and the risk increased with the amount of time the drugs were taken together, the researchers found. Taking Paxil for 41 percent of the time that tamoxifen was also taken resulted in one extra death from breast cancer within five years of stopping tamoxifen among every 20 women taking the drugs simultaneously, Juurlink's team estimated. The more time the drugs were taken together, the greater the risk, they added. SSRIs inhibit CYP 2D6 to varying degrees, the authors said, noting Paxil is "exceptionally potent" in that respect. Dr. Frank Andersohn, a senior research associate at the Institute for Social Medicine, Epidemiology, and Health Economics at Charite University Medical Center in Berlin, Germany, and author of an accompanying journal editorial, said that "physicians should be aware that paroxetine and other strong 2D6-inhibiting drugs should be avoided in women treated with tamoxifen." Fluoxetine (Prozac) is also a strong 2D6 inhibitor, the authors noted. Another expert, Dr. Harold J. Burstein, said this paper adds to the substantial literature suggesting that drugs that affect the metabolism of tamoxifen might affect breast cancer outcomes for women taking tamoxifen. "While the results should not alarm patients currently taking SSRIs, they do suggest that, as a practice style, patients on tamoxifen who also need SSRIs should probably seek out agents such as Effexor in preference to Prozac or Paxil," said Burstein, clinical investigator in the breast oncology center at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. "The findings are also a reminder that each drug that a patient takes should be thought through carefully. If there are drugs that aren't needed, then they aren't needed and can be omitted," he added. More information For more information on breast cancer, visit the American Cancer Society.  Copyright © 2010 HealthDay. All rights reserved. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Popular breast cancer drug, Paxil don't mix: study - Toronto Sun Posted: 09 Feb 2010 07:03 AM PST Message from fivefilters.org: If you can, please donate to the full-text RSS service so we can continue developing it. A commonly prescribed antidepressant may counter the effectiveness of breast cancer medications and increase a woman's risk of death, a new study has found. Paxil, an antidepressant often prescribed to women with breast cancer, could decrease - or completely destroy - the effects of tamoxifen, a widely used and extremely effective breast cancer drug. "For women taking these two drugs together, I think there are better options for the treatment of depression," said Dr. David Juurlink, a senior scientist at the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences in Toronto and one of the study's authors. According to the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation, about 22,700 women and 180 men are diagnosed with breast cancer every year in Canada. Nearly half of all breast cancer patients develop depression within the first year, and 25% in the third and fourth, according to the British Medical Journal. Many of these patients are prescribed selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), a drug class that includes paroxetine, meaning Paxil and its generics. The study looked 2,430 women in Ontario, aged 66 and up, who were treated with both tamoxifen and an SSRI between 1993 and 2005. Of those, 374, or 15%, had died of breast cancer. On average, these patients were taking antidepressants for about half the time they were on tamoxifen, a drug therapy that usually lasts five years. The longer both drugs were combined, the greater the risk of death, the study found. Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. |
| Popular antidepressant 'cancels out' effect of breast cancer drug - Daily Telegraph Posted: 08 Feb 2010 11:25 PM PST Message from fivefilters.org: If you can, please donate to the full-text RSS service so we can continue developing it. Women who took both tamoxifen for their breast cancer and antidepressant paroxetine, also known as Seroxat, were more likely to die from their cancer than those on other depression drugs. The researchers, writing in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), said their results had "major implications" and an accompanying editorial said the two should not be prescribed together. Tamoxifen is taken by thousands of British women each year and works by blocking the female sex hormone oestrogen, which can fuel tumour growth. It is generally given for up to five years following initial treatment or surgery. Paroxetine is often prescribed as well as it counters the hot flushes which many women suffer as a side effect of tamoxifen. But now doctors are being advised to prescribe alternative antidepressants or where that is not possible to switch to a different cancer drug. The latest research was led by a team from the Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre and the University of Toronto in Canada. A total of 2,430 women aged over 66 took part in the research, which looked at those having treatments between 1993 and 2005. For women were taking tamoxifen for an average of four years, those who were also on paroxetine for three of those years were almost twice as likely to die from their breast cancer than women who tried paroxetine only briefly. Those who took the two drugs together for two years were just over 50 per cent more likely to die from their cancer. The team calculated that for every 20 patients who took the two drugs together for just under two years, one extra woman would die from her breast cancer within five years. The authors stressed that women should not stop taking tamoxifen and said their study does not imply that paroxetine itself causes or influences the course of breast cancer. They also cautioned against suddenly stopping paroxetine. Dr David Juurlink, one of the study's authors, added: "These results highlight a drug interaction that is extremely common, widely under-appreciated and potentially life-threatening, yet uniformly avoidable. "Tamoxifen is a crucial element of therapy for patients with hormone receptor-positive breast cancer regardless of age or breast cancer stage. "When co-prescription of tamoxifen with an antidepressant is necessary, preference should be given to antidepressants that exhibit little or no impact on tamoxifen's metabolism." More than 45,000 women are diagnosed with breast cancer each year in the UK and just under 12,000 die from the disease. Meg McArthur, from Breakthrough Breast Cancer, said: "This research is welcome because it gives an insight into how the effectiveness of tamoxifen could be influenced by taking antidepressants. Tamoxifen remains a beneficial treatment for breast cancer and as several antidepressants are available doctors should be able to find the right combination for patients. "This should not put patients off taking tamoxifen and any concerns should be discussed with their doctor." A spokeswoman for GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), which makes paroxetine with the brand name Seroxat, said: "GSK is aware of a reported interaction between paroxetine and tamoxifen and, in early 2008, following a thorough review of the scientific literature, the company submitted updated prescribing information to regulatory agencies on a worldwide basis. "This interaction is currently included as a Warning and Precaution in the European label (Summary of Product Characteristics) and in the equivalent section of the US Prescribing Information. "Following publication of this new study, GSK will review these additional data and will work with regulatory authorities to determine next steps." Five Filters featured article: Chilcot Inquiry. Available tools: PDF Newspaper, Full Text RSS, Term Extraction. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
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