• Clinical therapeutics · Feb 2007

    Review

    Therapeutic options for the management of hot flashes in breast cancer survivors: an evidence-based review.

    • Louise Bordeleau, Kathleen Pritchard, Pamela Goodwin, and Charles Loprinzi.
    • Department of Medical Oncology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Ibordeleau@mtsinai.on.ca
    • Clin Ther. 2007 Feb 1; 29 (2): 230-41.

    BackgroundWomen with breast cancer may experience treatment-induced menopausal symptoms or natural menopause. Menopausal symptoms, particularly hot flashes, are reported at a high frequency in this group and tend to be more severe, distressing, and of greater duration than in controls. Because of the contribution of sex hormones to breast cancer, the use of hormonal agents for the control of hot flashes is problematic in these women. Safer nonhormonal alternatives are recommended for this patient group.ObjectivesThis was a systematic review of the therapeutic options for the treatment of hot flashes in breast cancer survivors.MethodsMEDLINE was searched from 1990 to July 2006 using the disease-specific term breast neoplasms and the subheadings menopause and hot flashes. EMBASE was searched from 1990 to March 2006 using the disease-specific subject headings breast tumor/ breast cancer and menopause and the key word hot flashes. The reference lists of the identified articles and relevant review articles were examined for additional publications. Pertinent articles and abstracts of large randomized controlled trials focusing on the treatment of hot flashes in breast cancer survivors were selected for review. Pilot studies were excluded.ResultsA number of nonpharmacologic approaches are available for the treatment of hot flashes in breast cancer survivors, although they appear to be of limited effectiveness. Complementary alternative medicine therapies and vitamin E have been found to have modest effectiveness at best, and data on their long-term safety are not available. Centrally active agents such as the antidepressants venlafaxine and paroxetine and the anti seizure agent gabapentin have shown clinical effectiveness and appear to be reasonably well tolerated in this population.ConclusionsCentrally active agents (eg, venlafaxine, paroxetine, gabapentin) are regarded as the most promising nonhormonal treatments for hot flashes in breast cancer survivors. Nonpharmacologic and complementary alternative medicine therapies have limited effectiveness.

      Pubmed     Full text   Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…