Benefits of Hormonal Therapy

Hormonal therapy is a form of targeted therapy that works against hormone-receptor-positive breast cancer. It includes treatments that specifically target estrogen receptors in breast cancer cells. For many women, hormonal therapy is just as effective and even more important than the other treatments against breast cancer. It's not just an "extra."

But because hormonal therapy, in most cases, is a pill that you take each day at home, it may not seem as important as chemotherapy medicines that are injected into a vein (given intravenously) in a hospital. The fact is that hormonal therapy is more effective against hormone-receptor-positive breast cancer than chemotherapy is. Your doctor might recommend both forms of treatment, however. Your situation might require the added anti-cancer action that having both chemotherapy plus hormonal therapy could provide.

You might think of hormonal therapy as a critical insurance policy to back up your other treatments. Hormonal therapy gives many benefits. It can:

• reduce your risk of cancer coming back or spreading
• reduce your risk of a new cancer starting in the other breast
• shrink a medium-to-large breast cancer before surgery, making it possible for you to have lumpectomy and radiation instead of mastectomy

Also, if you have never had breast cancer but are at increased risk for getting the disease, hormonal therapy can reduce that risk.

Most of the different hormonal treatments have similar benefits. You and your doctor will choose the treatment that is right for you by looking at your medical history, your menopausal status, and your personal preferences. Your doctor's recommendation will be based on clinical guidelines as well as experience with many patients taking hormonal therapies over the years. Once you select a hormonal therapy, you have to take the medicine as prescribed in order to get the benefits.

In addition to considering the benefits, the two of you will need to look at the various side effects of the treatments. Weighing one against the other will allow you to select the best hormonal therapy for YOU.

In this section, you can read more about the:

• Benefits of Aromatase Inhibitors
• Benefits of Tamoxifen
• Benefits of Estrogen-Receptor Downregulators (ERDs)
• Benefits of Ovarian Shutdown or Removal
• What Can Hormonal Therapy Do for YOU"?