Breast Cancer Scene Improves in UK, Tumour Responding To Hormone Therapy More Prevalent

The breast cancer scene in the UK seems to be looking up significantly. For the types diagnosed in women these days there responds to hormone therapy well. It also grows slower.

The Scottish researchers also found improved survival over time, the British Journal of Cancer reported.

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Breast cancer is a cancer that affects the breasts or mammary glands. Early detection and lifestyle changes help in controlling breast cancer.

But the bad news is that lifestyle changes could themselves be inducing the hormone-dependent cancers in women.

More than 40,000 women are diagnosed with breast cancer in the UK annually, but in the last two decades or so, it is only the oestrogen-receptor positive cancers that are found to be on the rise.

These tumours respond well to hormone therapy, such as tamoxifen, which prevents the disease coming back.

But it is not clear that numbers were actually on the rise as the ability to detect these types of tumours in the lab may have improved in recent years.

In the latest study, researchers re-examined actual tissue samples - 420 from between 1984 and 1986 and 653 from 1996 to 1997 - saved by two large hospitals in Glasgow.

Tamoxifen

This medication is an antiestrogen, prescribed for breast cancer. It is also used for infertility, gynecomastia, ductal carcinoma either alone or with other medications.

Those diagnosed in the earlier time period had all presented with symptoms of cancer because screening by mammography had not yet been introduced.

The proportion of cancers which were oestrogen-receptor positive changed significantly from 64.2% to 71.5% over the 10-year period.

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And more cancers were diagnosed as grade one - slow-growing tumours, with a decline in the number of grade three - fast-growing tumours.

There was no change over time in the proportion of progesterone or Her-2 positive cancers.

It could be that screening is detecting more oestrogen-receptor positive cancers because they are slow-growing and may be detected before symptoms appear.

But another explanation could be changes in lifestyle factors which increase the risk of hormone-dependent tumours, such as women having babies at an older age, obesity after menopause and use of hormone replacement therapy.

The researchers, led by Dr Sylvia Brown at Crosshouse Hospital in Ayrshire wrote: "There is evidence that the percentage of all children being born to mothers aged 35 years and over is increasing in Scotland and that means BMI and prevalence of obesity are increasing."

She added that if there is a true increase in the proportion of these tumours it has implications for treatment decisions as many clinical trials were carried out in previous decades.

Dr Alison Ross, Cancer Research UK's senior science information officer, told Emma Wilkinson of the BBC: "It's plausible that lifestyle changes could be influencing the types of breast cancers that women are developing but we will need much larger studies to find out whether this trend is real.

"And it's also not clear whether these results reflect a shift in breast cancer biology or indicate that screening is better at detecting certain cancers.

"If the trend identified in this interesting study is confirmed and continues, it could have an impact on the way doctors apply results from breast cancer studies done decades ago to the treatments in use today."

Source-Medindia
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