Interview
with Neil Love, MD from Breast Cancer Update for Surgeons,
Program 1 2000
Play
Audio Below:
Malcolm
Pike has, for a long time now, been showing that oral contraceptives
suppress the incidence of cancer of the uterus and cancer of the
ovary, and I think the mechanism is the same. And that is, suppression
of activity in these organs, no ovulation therefore, no epithelial
disruption, therefore no epithelial repair, therefore no cell division,
and so on. No mutations. Interestingly, the protection from breast
cancer is proportionate to the number of years the woman takes the
birth control pills, and it’s possible to show that, for a
woman not taking the pills, the risk of cancer goes up in a linear
fashion, in log plot. If you take the pills, then the slope of the
curve shallows out and the risk goes up much slower, so the two
curves start to diverge. When they resume not taking the birth control
pills, they revert to the old slope but they’re lower on this
graph than they were and they never catch up, there’s always
a vertical difference between these two lines and the proportion
of difference is determined by the amount of years they took the
pills. And I think it’s reasonable to presume the same thing
happens with tamoxifen. That all we are doing is putting the cells
into suspended animation so to speak. They’re not dividing,
they’re not reproducing, therefore mutations aren’t happening,
therefore you’ve retarded the whole disease process by five
years and they’ll stay behind.
Chemoprevention
of breast cancer [Review]. Brown, P. H. and Lippman, S. M. (Reprint available from: Lippman
SM Univ Texas, MD Anderson Canc Ctr, Dept Clin Canc Prevent 1515
Holcombe Blvd,Box 236 Houston, TX 77030 USA). Breast Cancer Research
& Treatment. 62(1):1-17, 2000 Jul.
Vitamin
A analogue for breast cancer prevention: a grade of F or incomplete?
Response Piantadosi, S. (Reprint available from: Piantadosi S Johns Hopkins
Univ, Sch Med, Johns Hopkins Oncol Ctr 550 N Broadway,Suite 1103
Baltimore, MD 21205 USA).. Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
92(3):274-275, 2000 Feb 2. No abstract
Tamoxifen
for the prevention of breast cancer in the high-risk woman.
Morrow, M. and Jordan, V. C. (Reprint available from: Morrow M 676
N St Clair St,13th Floor, Room 13-104 Chicago, IL 60611 USA).. Annals
of Surgical Oncology. 7(1):67-71, 2000 Jan-Feb. No abstract
