Tuesday, December 13, 2016

Is Prolia good news for cancer?

I was thinking of ways to get a vacation from Prolia.  I had come to it by a roundabout way - I can't take the osteoporosis pills due to a list of problems.  My oncologist offered to handle the Prolia shots. (I didn't like the bit in the Prolia leaflet about my immune system including:  "Stay away from sick people.")  Makes a person want to leave Starbucks when anyone coughs...

My tamoxifen appointment with him is Thursday (already had my mammo and bloodwork.)

Then I read on Twitter:



There's a pile of pages on bone loss in my medical file - full of "In the absence of estrogen" it seems RANK/RANKL destroy not only bones that need replacement, but eagerly move onto bones we're still using.  Siccing Prolia on the RANK/RANKL was the answer...

The study covered here says RANK/RANKL also work in "formation of a lactating mammary gland in pregnancy'"  And the authors say:

 "Based on their normal physiology, RANKL/RANK control the onset of hormone-induced breast cancer through the expansion of mammary progenitor cells." 

For some reason, the abstract seemed to gloss over that or over-simplify, and I don't have the complete test. 

 The abstract concludes: "we propose that anti-RANKL therapy could be a feasible preventive strategy for women carrying BRCA1 mutations, and by extension to other women with high risk of breast cancer.

I wonder what my oncologist will say about this...


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