Breast cancer survivors can safely stop treatment and get pregnant.

For women who’ve had breast cancer and would like to have a child, taking a break from a common treatment to try for a pregnancy appears safe in the short term.

Researchers conducted a clinical trial to study the effects of temporarily stopping hormone treatment, also known as endocrine or endocrine therapy. This reduces the risk breast cancer will return. Researchers report in The May 4 issue that after three years the incidence of breast cancer recurrence or new cases was almost the same in women who stopped the hormone therapy and those who did not. New England Journal of Medicine. It’s the first study designed to assess the safety of a treatment break among women who wished to become pregnant.

The study found that the women who participated in the study had breast cancer that was hormone-positive, meaning estrogen, progesterone and/or both hormones could promote the growth of cancer. According to the National Cancer Institute, approximately 80 percent of all breast cancers are hormonal positive. The drugs used in hormone therapy reduce these hormone levels or stop the interaction between cancer cells and hormones that promote growth.SN: 6/7/11). This is the standard treatment for breast cancers that are hormone positive and it is recommended to be continued for 5-10 years.

Hormone therapy can cause birth defects and cannot be taken while pregnant. If you are a woman of reproductive age and have hormone-positive cancer, waiting five to 10 years to get pregnant may not be possible.

Breast cancer is predicted to affect more than 30,000 U.S. females aged 20 to 44 in 2023. According to research, younger women with breast cancer are worried about how treatments will affect their fertility. The hormone therapy drug Tamoxifen, which is prescribed for premenopausal breast cancer patients with hormone-positive disease, is not well received by this age group.

“This is obviously a really challenging position for these women to be in,” says breast surgical oncologist Nicole Christian of the University of Colorado School of Medicine in Aurora who was not involved in the research. “They’re being treated, hopefully cured of their breast cancer and they are looking forward to their long, hopefully healthy lives, and for many of these women, having a family is a part of that life.”

Breast medical oncologist Ann Partridge, of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Boston, and her colleagues examined whether stopping hormone therapy for pregnancy and then restarting it would affect the risk reduction associated with the treatment.

Women in the study had to be 42 years old or younger and had a cancer that was at an early stage, which means they had smaller tumors, limited spreading of the disease. The women in the study had all undergone surgery, and were on hormone therapy between 18-30 months. Some of the participants had also received chemotherapy. The break in hormone therapy was supposed to last two years so that women could try to get pregnant, have a child and nurse if they wanted to.

The comparison group was made up of women who had hormone-positive breast carcinomas and were the same age, but had taken part in trials that studied hormone therapy. The women in the comparison group had not stopped their treatment.

Incidence of breast cancer recurrence or new cases was less than 9 percent in 516 women who stopped therapy, but just over 9 per cent for the 1499 women in comparison group. Three hundred seventeen women out of the 500 women who had information about pregnancy gave birth to at least one child. The majority of women who participated in the study resumed hormone therapy.

Mary Gemignani is a breast surgeon at Memorial Sloan Kettering in New York City, who wasn’t involved in the study. She says that when treating breast cancer among women in reproductive age, many women ask if they can have children. Though longer-term data will be needed, she says, “at least we know that, for this short term, it appears to be safe” to take the break.

Researchers will follow women participating in the study over a 10-year period. For now, it’s helpful to have this initial data to support the decision to try for a pregnancy, Partridge says. “Cancer takes away so much control for people,” she says. “This allows them to add back some element of control in terms of their planning for their future and that of their family.”