Showing posts with label Treatment I've tried for something else.. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Treatment I've tried for something else.. Show all posts

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...