Hormone Thwarts Early Menopause
Posted 7/29/2011
Posted in
This is an article from BreastCancer.org that comments on a recent Italian study that found that adding triptorelin to the other chemotherapy drugs given to young women reduced the incidence of early menopause. Here is the beginning and then a link to read more:
Hormone Thwarts Early Menopause in Breast Cancer
2011-07-20T12:00:00-04:00
Charles Bankhead
What breastcancer.org says about this article..Hormone Thwarts Early Menopause in Breast Cancer
Chemotherapy is often used to treat breast cancer in both premenopausal and postmenopausal women. In premenopausal women, chemotherapy can disrupt normal ovary function and cause damage, which leads to either temporary or permanent menopause and infertility. This is called chemotherapy-induced menopause.
An Italian study found that women who got the medicine triptorelin (brand name: Trelstar) during chemotherapy treatment for breast cancer were much less likely to develop chemotherapy-induced menopause compared to women who didn't get triptorelin during chemotherapy. The results were published in the July 2011 issue of the
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Journal of the American Medical Association
Triptorelin is a type of medicine called a gonadotropin hormone-releasing hormone (GnRH) agonist or a luteinizing hormone-releasing hormone (LHRH) agonist. These medicines work by telling the brain to tell the ovaries to stop making estrogen. Zoladex (chemical name: goserelin) and Lupron (chemical name: leuprolide) are other examples of this type of medicine. Zoladex and Lupron are more commonly used in the United States, while triptorelin is more commonly used in Europe.
http://www.breastcancer.org/treatment/chemotherapy/new_research/20110720.jsp
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