Hot Flashes Good News for Breast Cancer Survivors

June 4, 2007 — -- Lillie Shockney's hot flashes were so miserable they made her think twice about continuing tamoxifen, the anti-estrogen medication that was helping her to survive breast cancer.

"For five years, I had night sweats every other hour, waking up with my pillow wet, and during the daytime I had hot flashes every hour on the hour," the 53-year-old Maryland resident recounted.

"I was very miserable. I had to remind myself what the purpose of this drug was. If I didn't hold on to that, I would have stopped."

Now, it appears that hot flashes like Shockney's may actually be a welcome sign, according to a study presented Monday at the American Society of Clinical Oncology's annual meeting in Chicago.

In a five-year study of nearly 900 women with early-stage breast cancer who had taken tamoxifen, University of California at San Diego's Dr. Joanne Mortimer and her colleagues found that those who reported hot flashes were less likely to experience a recurrence of the breast cancer than those who did not.

Furthermore, hot flashes better predicted a woman's long-term chances of the breast cancer returning than her age or how advanced the breast cancer was when it was first detected.

"Hot flashes are an incredibly common problem in women who have been treated for breast cancer with tamoxifen," said Mortimer. "If we understood the cause, maybe we'd find out what is good about these hot flashes and how that might relate to breast cancer therapy."

The study was based on data from the Women's Health Eating and Living study, which encompassed several institutions across the country.

Since the hormone estrogen can encourage the growth of many types of breast cancers, it stands to reason that blocking the action of this hormone might help women with these cancers. This is exactly what tamoxifen does.

The drug's success has made it a routine treatment for many patients after breast cancer surgery to help stop the cancer from coming back.