Case+Study

= = = = =With regards to the lesser prilosec side effects the probabilities are that your doctor has weighed up that the advantages to your health way outweigh the negatives therefore there really is nothing to worry about with it. It is terribly vital that you still take the medication until the course is complete even if you have these gentle prilosec aspect effects unless they do not clear up or start to induce worse. **[|side effects prilosec]**Case Study= <-Back to Introduction To Results-> Home Page

Chemoprevention
[|Omeprazole and alcohol] Before a case study is addressed, some words must be said about chemoprevention. //Chemoprevention// is the use of pharmocologic or natural agents to inhibit the development of cancer. Tamoxifen is, therefore, a chemoprevention drug for breast cancer. Making the decision to choose chemoprevention is not entirely about actual risk of developing cancer, but perceived risk as well. For example, smokers are more interested in breast cancer chemoprevention than nonsmokers because their perceived risk for //all// cancers is higher. This is the same for depressed women. Postmenopausal women on hormone replacement therapy are also more interested in breast cancer chemoprevention because tamoxifen can be used as an adjunct to or instead of hormone replacement therapy in addition to preventing breast cancer. While interest is not indicative of whether or not chemoprevention is the right choice for an at risk woman, it definitely adds to the decision.

Case Study 1
Kate* is a [|premenopausal] 46 year old Caucasian woman. She leads a healthy lifestyle: low stress, low fat diet, little alcohol, and she does yoga. She has two half sisters, one from her mother and one from her father. Both have breast cancer. Kate also has some relatives including her grandmother on her father's side who had breast cancer later in life. Kate gets more frequent breast exams because of her family history and the fact that she has [|fibrocystic disease]. She has also never had children. It is unlikely that she has the [|BRCA mutations]. Because Kate's family history increases her risk of breast cancer three fold, her doctor suggested Tamoxifen a few years ago. At the time, Kate was reluctant to take a prescription drug for five years because the side effects seemed like she would go into menopause early. Therefore, she made the conscious decision not to begin treatment since she is premenopausal. However, the older she gets the closer she gets to menopause and the more she is reconsidering Tamoxifen, but the following questions linger in her mind:

Does Tamoxifen cause menopause early?

Is Tamoxifen effective in premenopausal women?

===Case Study 2=== Alexandra is an African-American 35 year old premenopausal women who has the BRCA mutations. Because of her increased risk, she is considering chemoprevention. She, however, heard that Tamoxifen had harmful side effects and since she only has one risk factor, though a major one, she wasn't sure if the risk outweighed the benefits. After doing more research online, she found another SERM that was very similar to Tamoxifen called Raloxifene. Since she is concerned with the side effects of Tamoxifen, so Raloxifene could be an option for her. Alexandra wonders about the following questions:

Is Raloxifene as effective as Tamoxifen in preventing breast cancer?

Are Raloxifene's side effects less harmful than Tamoxifen?

Can Raloxifene be used for premenopausal women?

[[image:islaslab/87849216_XS.jpg width="190" height="135" align="left" link="http://photos.demandstudios.com/getty/article/178/160/87849216_XS.jpg"]]Case Study 3
Rebecca is a [|postmenopausal] Caucasian women on hormone replacement therapy. She had children late in life. She has recently become concerned about her risk of developing invasive breast cancer because of her family history (her mother and grandmother had breast cancer) and a non-invasive ductal carcinoma in situ she had last year. Her doctor suggested Tamoxifen because it can be used as an adjunct to hormone replacement therapy in addition to being a chemopreventative to breast cancer. Her daughters, also concerned with their mother's breast cancer risk, as well as their own, are pushing her to make a decision.

Can Tamoxifen be used in addition to hormone replace therapy?

What are Tamoxifen's side effects in postmenopausal women?

//*Name has been changed to protect anonymity. Alexandra and Rebecca are both fictional.//