Breast cancer medication letrozole could increase ovulation in women with PCOS

In continuation of my update on Letrozole

A medicine used in breast cancer treatment is now considered the best option for treating the most common cause of infertility.

Letrozole has been found to increase ovulation in women with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS), a common form of ovulation dysfunction, leading to a 40 percent increase in pregnancy rates and more ovulation and live births than Clomid, the previous standard.

In breast cancer patients, Letrozole decreases the amount of estrogen, but a side effect is increased ovulation.

"We have found out that the hormonal messages affect different areas of the body in different ways," said Dr. Stephanie Estes, a board certified fertility specialist and director of the Robotic Surgery Program at Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center.

She suggests that patients whose infertility is caused by irregular ovulation ask their providers about letrozole, since news of its effectiveness as an infertility treatment hasn't spread very quickly. "It is easy to take, has a low rate of multiple births, and fewer side effects than Clomid," Estes said.

If infertility is caused by male factors or simply unexplainable, doctors may recommend other medicines, injectables, inseminations or in-vitro fertilization (IVF), depending on the diagnosis.

"You always have to look at the underlying cause to pick which treatment is correct," Estes said.

Intra-uterine insemination (IUI) places concentrated sperm directly into the woman's uterus so it doesn't have so far to travel and thus increases chances of fertilization. With IVF, the woman's eggs are harvested and combined with sperm in an embryology laboratory and then an embryo is placed into the uterus.

"IVF is becoming more and more successful, so its availability to patients has improved," Estes said. "More states and companies are seeing the importance of family-building within the job, so now there is a lot more coverage for these treatments."

Estes said most insurance companies will cover fertility testing, even if they don't cover the treatments. "Many people just wait and hope, and their family tells them it will happen when it is supposed to happen," Estes said. "But why not come and see what the issue might be?"

Breast cancer medication letrozole could increase ovulation in women with PCOS: A medicine used in breast cancer treatment is now considered the best option for treating the most common cause of infertility.

Breast Cancer Drug May Help Women Fight a Leading Cause of Infertility: Study

Women with polycystic ovary syndrome have a better chance of getting pregnant if they take a breast cancer drug instead of the currently preferred medication, a new study suggests.

Polycystic ovary syndrome -- the most common cause of female infertility in the United States -- causes higher than normal levels of the male hormone androgen, infrequent periods and small cysts on the ovaries. It affects 5 to 10 percent of reproductive-age women, according to background information in the study.

Currently, doctors typically prescribe clomiphine (Clomid) to boost fertility for women with polycystic ovary syndrome. However, this new study suggests the drug letrozole (Femara) results in better ovulation, conception and birth rates.

"We found a simple and comparatively safe and vastly more effective treatment for [polycystic ovary syndrome]," said lead researcher Dr. Richard Legro, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Penn State University's College of Medicine in Hershey, Penn.

Clomiphine, which works by stimulating ovulation, has been the standard treatment for years, but has a high rate of multiple births, Legro said.

Letrozole, a treatment for breast cancer in postmenopausal women, works by blocking estrogen production, tricking the ovaries into producing more of the hormone, he explained.

The new study, funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health, was published July 10 in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Breast Cancer Drug May Help Women Fight a Leading Cause of Infertility: Study - Drugs.com MedNews

Combination of vaccine and letrozole effectively improves survival from breast cancer

In continuation of my update on Letrozole

Combination of vaccine and letrozole effectively improves survival from breast cancer: A vaccine that targets cancer cells in combination with the drug letrozole, a standard hormonal therapy against breast cancer, significantly increased survival when tested in mice, a team of UC Davis investigators has found.

Notch inhibitor appears to treat breast cancer....

In a novel therapeutic approach to treating breast cancer, Loyola University Medical Center researchers are reporting positive results from a clinical trial of a drug that targets tumor stem cells. A pilot study at Loyola found that an experimental drug known as a "notch inhibitor" appears to block this process by turning off key genes. Prior to surgery, the patients received one of two commonly used drugs, tamoxifen or letrozole. These drugs work by blocking estrogen stimulation of breast cancer cells. In addition to tamoxifen or letrozole, patients also received the experimental notch-inhibitor drug, MK-0752 (see structure).

 "The notch inhibitor appears to be doing what it is intended to do," said Dr. Clodia Osipo....

There were minimal side effects from either the notch inhibitor or the estrogen-blocking drugs. One patient experienced puffy eyes and coughing and four patients experienced facial acne. No patients experienced diarrhea or surgical complications.

Ref : Loyola Medicine News Release

FDAs approval of Lapatinib in combination with Letrozole to treat breast cancer...

In my earlier blog, I mentioned about the combination of Lapatinib and Trastuzumab for breast cancer treatment. Now FDA has  approved Lapatinib in combination with Letrozole (see structure ; Letrozole trade name Femara, an oral non-steroidal aromatase inhibitor for the treatment of hormonally-responsive breast cancer after surgery)  to treat hormone positive and HER2-positive advanced breast cancer in postmenopausal women for whom hormonal therapy is indicated. This drug combination of  Lapatinib  & Letrozole provides women being treated for advanced breast cancer with an important treatment option. 

The entirely oral treatment regimen works by targeting both HER2 and the hormone receptors, thereby slowing the cancer cells' ability to grow or spread. As per the claim by  Dr. Richard Pazdur, (Director, Office of Oncology Drug Products, FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research) women with HER2-positive disease receiving the Lapatinib plus Letrozole combination more than doubled the time they lived without the cancer progressing compared with those receiving Letrozole alone (35 weeks vs. 13 weeks).

Lapatinib, was initially approved in combination with a chemotherapy drug, Xeloda (capecitabine) in 2007. This combination was used to treat women with advanced breast cancer tumors with the HER2 protein who had received prior treatment with chemotherapy drugs, including an anthracycline and a taxane, and Herceptin (trastuzumab), an anti-cancer antibody used to treat HER2-positive advanced breast cancer. Safety information from this study was consistent with previous Lapatinib clinical studies in advanced breast cancer. The most commonly reported side effects of the combination were diarrhea, rash, nausea and fatigue. Still clinical trials are to be carried out, in my opinion its a good achievement...

Ref : http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/fda-expands-use-of-approved-breast-cancer-drug-83072502.html