Are Prescription Treatments for Breast Cancer Right for You?

If you have just been diagnosed with breast cancer, your mind is probably reeling. There are so many different options to consider, like what kind of surgery you will need and what your course of treatment will be after surgery. Will you need to do both chemotherapy and radiation or just one? Will you need to have a complete mastectomy or simply a lumpectomy? Will you need to have a longer period of radiation treatment or progressive chemotherapy? And also of importance, once you have survived all of those things, what kind of prescription drugs should you take to prevent your cancer from recurring, and is taking prescription medication the right choice for you?

Once you have undergone treatment for your breast cancer, you will have to decide with your doctor the best course of preventative care and maintenance to ensure you have the best chance of long-term survival. With a disease such as breast cancer, the five-year mark is a milestone. Survival rates increase tremendously upon hitting this very important and sought after mark. In order to make sure they reach that mark, many doctors place their patients on prescription medications designed to prevent the cancerous cells from redeveloping.

Whether these drugs are right for you can be a complicated issue. Every type of preventative maintenance cancer drug is a potent medication that carries potentially severe side effects for many women. For example, while the commonly prescribed drug Tamoxifen helps to reduce the risk of cancerous growth, it also carries a risk of uterine cancer. Fortunately, with regular pelvic exams and close monitoring, most patients are able to sidestep this risk and to enjoy a healthy rate of survival. For drugs like aromatase inhibitors, women may risk losing bone density, which can be a major cause for concern for older women at risk of developing osteoporosis anyway. Regular bone density checks can help to monitor those risks. Women who would like to become pregnant also face a tough decision in weighing the benefits of these post-cancer prescription drugs and their negatives. Will the drugs increase their survival rate enough to outweigh the risk of birth defects or a negative impact on the woman’s fertility? These are tough questions each breast cancer survivor must face if she wants to have children.

Unfortunately, in some cases these prescription drugs may be absolutely necessary. In these cases, the positives of promoting an increased rate of five-year survival should be weighed against the potential side effects for each drug. However, unlike the side effects from chemotherapy and radiation, which generally fade after six months to a year or more, patients will most likely remain on these preventative drugs for much of their five critical years after cancer, so regular monitoring and check-ups are key.