Hormone treatment started

Jan is pleased......results phoned through to say her cancer was both ER and PR positive. This is the norm and makes conventional hormone therapy the treatment of choice. The prescription was faxed through that day, and she started the drugs for a 2 year course to be followed by 3 years of Aromasin. The fax would make us believe we are urgently starting a life saving drug! WRONG.

I worry......

We had deliberately not looked hard at hormone treatment effects too soon, we didn't want to worry about drugs she may never take, radio is giving us enough concern!

So I look for trials showing effectiveness of Tamoxifen, the drug she will take for the first 2 years. I find little hard evidence of its effectiveness. So either the breast cancer is so "benign" that an aspirin or placebo can help as I said in previous posts, or Tamoxifen is no great deal. The advice we had from our surgeon and oncologist was also different, surgeon said wait till radio is finished before taking Tamoxifen, oncologist wants earliest possible start. If the drug was powerful surely there would be a clear cut sequence, not a disagreement between these 2 doctors treating Jan?

I have already posted that we reckon chemo is not worthwhile, radiotherapy makes no difference to long term survival, so now hormones are coming across to me as equally questionable. I am a Christian and looked at this site called cancertruth which is written by someone claiming to be a Christian and wanting to pass on helpful information. I want to discredit it, the author is not a qualified doctor, and he gives no facts unless one pays him money. Yet he says the book will help one "Learn how the Cancer Industry manipulates statistics to make it appear that chemotherapy works when it really cures less than 3% of all cancer patients!" That ties in exactly with my reading of the figures for Jan's case which is why we have already dismissed chemo. It rings true on some points.

I look at the figures for Aromasin, the drug Jan will take for 3 years. This site is written by the mamufacturer, so will present the drug in the best possible light. Three things worry me about this drug:

• all the side effects are worse than Tamoxifen, some of these are heart effects.
  
• the 3 year figures look better than 5 year, almost as though aim of the drug is just to give just 3 years of life, and then who cares. It was after all designed for late stage breast cancer, and has only just had its use extended to early breast cancer in patients who have already survived 2 years of Tamoxifen.
  
• the overall mortality gains are not statistically significant. Wow, what an admission for a drug with worse side effects. How did this get approved?
  

So I am concerned and confused by a complex issue. If one thinks about yesterdays post, where I said a ten week delay in starting radiotherapy may help Jan when the NHS say this should be between 4 and 8 weeks max it means either our NHS have it wrong, the differences are small, or radiotherapy is so grueling it is better to let the breast recover for ten weeks before such treatment.

Another concern we have is that Jan has been taking "red clover" for the last ten years or more. It is known to have similar effects to Tamoxifen, so similar that both a nurse and the oncologist have told Jan to stop taking "red clover". I am happy about that whilst Jan takes Tamoxifen as it is known they compete with each other. But if they are similar has Jan already been enjoying the hormone benefits just by taking "red clover" without the side effects Tamoxifen can give? This book suggests she may have been, so we are losing a valuable natural natural remedy whilst we use Tamoxifen.

I query our NHS treatment. But if mental state is part of the cure do I keep these concerns to myself and let Jan rejoice in the fact that she has started treatment? She still has complete trust in our medical service, after all she worked in the service for over 20 years.