The risk of premature menopause is smaller for women undergoing chemotherapy for breast cancer if an additional drug is used, new research suggests.
"Women with invasive breast cancer face possible ovarian function loss and impaired fertility due to their anticancer treatment. Fertility concerns can affect treatment decisions of young patients with breast cancer," explain Dr Lucia Del Mastro, of the Istituto Nazionale per la Ricerca sul Cancro, Genova, Italy and colleagues in yesterday’s (22 December) Journal of the American Medical Association.
They write that embryo or oocyte cryopreservation is the standard procedure for fertility preservation in patients with cancer, but "No proven methods for preservation of ovarian function are yet available".
So the team investigated the effectiveness of luteinising hormone-releasing drugs during chemotherapy, in order to preserve ovarian function and fertility.
They carried out a trial of 281 premenopausal women (average age 39) treated for breast cancer at 16 sites in Italy between October 2003 and January 2008. Participants were followed up until 2014.
The women were given at random either chemotherapy alone or chemotherapy plus the drug triptorelin.
Overall, 72.6% of participants on triptorelin resumed their periods within five years, compared with 64.0% in the chemotherapy alone group, increasing success by 28% with triptorelin. Breast cancer relapse rates were similar.
"Among premenopausal women with either hormone receptor-positive or hormone receptor-negative breast cancer, concurrent administration of triptorelin and chemotherapy, compared with chemotherapy alone, was associated with higher long-term probability of ovarian function recovery," the authors write.
However, there was no statistically significant difference in the rate of women who went on to become pregnant, they report.
Lambertini, M. et al. Ovarian Suppression With Triptorelin During Adjuvant Breast Cancer Chemotherapy and Long-term Ovarian Function, Pregnancies, and Disease-Free Survival. JAMA 22 December 2015 doi:10.1001/jama.2015.17291
Leave a Reply