After early-stage breast cancer, interrupting endocrine therapy to become pregnant didn’t raise risk of recurrence
Women who’ve been treated for hormone-sensitive breast cancer often face five to 10 years of endocrine therapy to lower the chances of their tumors coming back. Because that drug regimen is toxic during pregnancy, women who haven’t begun their families yet may lose that chance before they even try. New research published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine suggests there might be another option.
Women with early-stage, hormone receptor-positive breast cancer who interrupted their endocrine therapy to become pregnant had about the same risk of cancer recurrence as similar breast cancer patients who didn’t pause their treatment, the study found. After about three and half years, almost three-quarters of participants became pregnant at least once and nearly two-thirds had healthy babies while pausing hormone therapy.
