Obesity Might Hinder Treatment of Some Breast Cancers

 Reblogged:from Yahoo News                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     British researchers looked at 54 postmenopausal women with estrogen  receptor-positive breast cancer, meaning that the tumor may grow in the  presence of estrogen. More than three-quarters of breast cancers require  estrogen to grow, so blocking the production or action of estrogen is one  of the main ways to treat the disease.

The researchers found that obese breast cancer patients had higher  levels of estrogen than women of normal weight.

The women in the study also were compared according to their body-mass  index (BMI). BMI is a measure of obesity based on height and weight, and a  BMI of 30 is considered the threshold for obesity. Women with a BMI of 30  to 35 had about three times higher levels of estrogen in their blood than  those with a BMI of less than 25, the researchers reported July 16 in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

After treatment with hormone-suppressing drugs, estrogen levels in the obese women dropped significantly, but still remained at more than double  the levels seen in women of normal weight.

The researchers emphasized that women undergoing breast cancer  treatment should not be concerned by the findings. They also said the  study results may lead to improvements in doctors’ ability to select the  best treatment for overweight and obese breast cancer patients.

“Our findings are based on laboratory studies, so we would need to  carry out clinical trials to tell us whether women with a higher BMI would  benefit from changes to their treatment,” study senior author Mitch  Dowsett, a team leader in the Breakthrough Breast Cancer Research Centre  at the Institute of Cancer Research in London, said in an institute news  release.

“Women with higher BMI should certainly not be alarmed by this finding  or stop taking their treatment,” he said. “[However], our study takes us a  step closer to understanding which of the treatment options available  might be the most suitable for individual women.”

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• Obesity May Affect Response To Breast Cancer Treatment (medicalnewstoday.com)
• Obese women not getting as much benefit from breast cancer drugs: Study – London Free Press (lfpress.com)
• Estrogen May Lower Breast Cancer Risk in Women (dranitapetruzzelli.com)
• Obesity Might Hinder Treatment of Some Breast Cancers (nlm.nih.gov)
• Obesity Might Hinder Treatment of Some Breast Cancers – U.S. News & World Report (drugstoresource.wordpress.com)
• Breast Cancer Treatment (healthmad.com)