Study Reveals Breast Cancer Changes After its Spread

By Rachel Stockton
 
The journal Annals of Oncology is reporting on a study that has revealed that up to 40% of breast cancers can change form once they spread to the lymph nodes.  This means that the type of treatment might have to be altered in order to be effective.

211 women with breast cancer were analyzed; in all of the patients, the cancer had spread to the lymph nodes.  This helps to explain why that once the cancer has migrated to the lymph nodes, it is much more difficult to treat.  Lead researcher, Dr. Dana Faratiani expressed her surprise at the high number of cancers that had radically changed.

Brett Hall, a biochemist and researcher for the American Cancer Society has been studying breast cancer metastasis for several years.  He likens breast cancer as a “seed” that grows more quickly in other soil than in others. 

Once the cancer reaches the bone (which is where breast cancer most often spreads to), the “seeds” of the disease have found fertile ground.  Hall explains that the protein produced by bone marrow stem cells, interelukin-6, serves as a “fertilizer,” of sorts. 

Hall believes that treating certain women, especially those over 50, with tamoxifen is ill advised.  That’s because in post menopausal women, estrogen levels have diminished, yet levels of interleukin-6 in these women continues to increase each year after menopause.

The ACS states that when it comes to HRT, researchers have been too focused on the study that showed that women who received “opposed HRT,” a combination of progesterone and estrogen, that breast cancer rates increased by 26%.

Unfortunately, Hall states that the other half of that study has been ignored; it revealed that women who received estrogen only actually had a 23% reduced risk of breast cancer.

Bio-Identical Hormones

Another problem with the HRT study is that the researchers did not disclose that bio-identical hormones were not used during the trial; something that would have made all the difference, according to Anti-Aging Specialist, Dr. Corwin Petty of Northwest Arkansas.

“Bioidentical hormones have the same chemical structure as hormones that are made in the human body. The term "bioidentical" indicates that the chemical structure of the replacement hormone is identical to that of the hormone naturally found in the human body. In order for a replacement hormone to fully replicate the function of hormones which were originally naturally produced and present in the human body, the chemical structure must exactly match the original.”

The molecular differences between traditional HRT and bioidentical hormone replacement therapy (BHRT) could be the “defining aspect” that ultimately determines the safety and efficacy of HRT in general, Dr. Petty asserts.

Although Drs. Faratiani, Hall, and Petty focus on different aspects of HRT/BHRT, breast cancer and metastasis, their body of work underscores the fact that we have only skimmed the surface of a vast pool of, as yet, undiscovered knowledge.