What is endocrine therapy for breast cancer?

Many people don’t understand what endocrine therapy for breast cancer is. In fact, to put it simply, because breast cancer is a hormone-dependent tumor, estrogen plays a very important role in the development and changes of breast cancer. Endocrine therapy aims to lower estrogen, slow down or even stop the continued growth of cancer cells, and achieve the purpose of treating breast cancer.

In recent years, the incidence of breast cancer in my country has gradually increased and has become the cancer with the highest incidence rate among Chinese women. In order to prevent the recurrence of breast cancer, patients often need adjuvant treatment after surgery, among which endocrine therapy is one of the more important adjuvant treatment methods.

However, it should be noted that since endocrine therapy for breast cancer will suppress estrogen levels, and the presence of estrogen is indispensable for female bone formation, it is necessary to prevent calcium loss in the bones during the treatment process.

If no preventive measures are taken, endocrine therapy for breast cancer will lead to bone loss, increasing the risk of osteoporosis and fractures. Therefore, it is crucial for patients to maintain their bone health and prevent osteoporosis while receiving endocrine therapy. Patients should measure bone density regularly under the guidance of their doctors to assess the extent of bone damage caused by endocrine therapy for breast cancer and develop remedial plans. Different degrees of anti-osteoporosis treatment should be selected according to different stages. If necessary, calcitonin, active vitamin D or bisphosphonates can be used to prevent bone loss. At the same time, when conducting endocrine therapy, you should try to choose drugs with a lower risk of causing osteoporosis.

In addition, when using endocrine therapy to treat breast cancer, blood lipid health cannot be ignored. Studies have found that among the risk factors for cerebrovascular disease, dyslipidemia is most closely related to it. Women are more prone to changes in blood lipids after menopause, with increased total cholesterol and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, increasing the risk of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease. The main factor affecting women's blood lipid changes is estrogen rather than age.

Since estrogen is so closely related to blood lipids and atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, if postmenopausal patients with early breast cancer receive endocrine therapy for a long time, their estrogen levels will drop significantly, which will inevitably greatly increase the risk of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease.

Therefore, postmenopausal breast cancer patients should choose endocrine therapy drugs based on blood lipid indicators when receiving long-term endocrine therapy, and those with dyslipidemia can choose steroid aromatase inhibitors. The American Society of Clinical Oncology guidelines also point out that clinicians need to choose different aromatase inhibitor drug treatments based on the patient's lipid profile.

There are many common endocrine drugs for the treatment of breast cancer. Everyone must go to a regular hospital and choose a suitable drug for treatment under the guidance of a doctor. Of course, these drugs will have certain side effects on the body, but compared to chemotherapy, the harm to the body is much less. Let’s talk about this topic today. I wish you all good health.