Sweaty and flustered, my breast cancer patient was experiencing hot flushes. The lack of good treatment is frustrating | Ranjana Srivastava

“Doctor, stop!” It is suddenly orders to me. “I can’t treat something.”

I stopped in the middle of the sentence, and at the following stop, I see the development of the hot flow (also called a hot flash) in the actual time.

First, her pink face flows, then her neck and part of her chest visible over the top of the tank she wears in a very winter morning. Sweat beads on her forehead. Her burning ears may heat my cold fingers. But the most prominent is its expression, and the change is the one who consists of a lapse in the second division. It is like a defeated firefighter, where she fights to control a fire before resorting to just spending her time.

“Sorry for that,” is Grims.

When going around the clock at the bottom of my screen, the “event” takes two minutes from start to finish. At that time, I had a front seat for a dramatic version of the negative effect that oncologists often mention in passing breast cancer with anti -steroid treatment.

“How often do you face this?”

“Dozens of times in a good day,” ignore.

Nearly three quarters of breast cancers are positive for estrogen receptors, which means that cancer cells are stimulated by estrogen. Women with this type of cancer benefit from the suppression of estrogen, and they are achieved through various methods including birth control pills, injection and ovarian removal. This leads to menopause in the younger women and the most complete estrogen hormone.

With more than 20,000 Australian women and 2 million women around the world with breast cancer every year, anti -custrogen drugs are closer to penicillin in oncology. Every week, I write, renew and replace multiple texts.

But while all the characteristics mention the expected side effect of the hot flows, it bothers me that no one (including me) completely explains the live horror that many patients are connected.

Why this?

Women who have sealed an arduous journey of chemotherapy and radiation for early breast cancer express his hope that “it is not necessary to do so again.”

Women with spreading breast cancer hope that their cancer will remain, although it is not cured, in a critical situation for years.

The risk profile every woman calls for a specially designed conversation, however, on a large scale, imagine this advice: “There is an effective drug to reduce the risk of repetition and improve survival. You can test Hot flows, harsh joints, turbulent sleep, low mood, weight gain and sexual imbalance. “

If it seems that the punishment that is offered at the end of the punishment is the punishment, then it is. However, when drugs work, oncologists want to encourage commitment and hope that the side effects will not occur or can be managed.

“Symptoms of the bowl”, the medical term for hot flows, affects up to 90 % of women with breast cancer and are often severe. Up to half of all women in anti-steroid drugs depend on taking the medicine-and they are only those who tell us. Every oncologist knows the moment, the heart was when the patient rejects at risk treatment. But we also know the losses that led them to do so.

Looking at nature everywhere for hot flows, the lack of good treatments is frustrating. Among the bangs of the declared options such as cognitive behavioral therapy, acupuncture, magnetic hypnosis, diet, exercises, out -to -naming use of antidepressants and anti -synthesis, nothing has been proven as a meaningful way.

Then there is a paradox in taking a medicine to meet the side effect of another and gain weight and the complications associated with it in the process.

As a result, most women deal with the excessive cost of breast cancer.

Now, there is hope. in A random experience controlled From the pharmaceutical drug, the birth control pills once a day reduces hot women in women who take an anti -breast treatment. Elinzanetant By influencing the brain signals participating in regulating temperature.

Basically, women witnessed the average of dozens of daily episodes. By one month, 61 % of women who suffer from active therapy decreased by at least 50 % in the daily frequency of moderate to severe hot hot flows compared to 27 % on the imaginary medicine. The quality of sleep improved, as did the quality of life in general. Cross from the imaginary medicine to the active medicine led to similar results.

There is no medicine without side effects. More than 60 % of women in each group have reported at least one moderate harmful event, but severe cases were rare. Treatment, fatigue and diarrhea were reported frequently in the active treatment group, but it can be caused by cancer treatment. More than 90 % of women who completed one year have chosen the treatment to continue for two optional years, indicating a high acceptance rate.

The drug is not dependent yet, and oncologists will search for more details before a wide -ranging prescription.

The results of breast cancer are poorer in non -white women, but 88 % of the participants were eggs. Will this drug be effective in all qualified patients.

Does taking “treatment” improve the basic commitment that reduces the risk of cancer? This will be the goal of his description.

Finally, patients in clinical trials are strictly chosen and monitored. Will the real world experience coincide with the clinical experience experience? We know that he rarely does.

On his way out, he praised the illuminated design of perseverance with difficult treatment, smiling with gratitude in confession.

It is only two years in treatment. I allow myself to imagine a day there is room for re -rhythm.