Antihistamines for improving breast cancer survival

Yes, I’ve seen those, too. A very large retrospective study was done from the Swedish cancer registry and show good effect with 2 of the 5 antihistamines they targeted. Desloratadine had the best response; loratadine was the other antihistamine with good outcomes.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0284186X.2020.1769185#d1e207
Looks like more studies to come.
MD Anderson stated in an article that antihistamines may positively influence immunotherapy response.

It sounds like other antihistamines may also work. I regularly use azelastine and there was an article saying that this too may improve cancer outcomes. This is not limited to breast cancer.

Yes very exciting, what I've seen seems to be mostly related to immunotherapy response and cancers that are more immunogenic but I'm hopeful that this may apply to ER+/PR+ as well. Even in hormone cancers, your immune system still has a lot of work to do so hopefully this would help. So far I haven't found anything that antihistamines reduce the effectiveness of AIs or tamoxifen.

Thanks for sharing the exciting information and article, @lilacs777 & @triciaot !

This is indeed very exciting research finding; however, according to one article published by Harvard Health Publishing Staff in 2022, it had the following warning:

"A report published in JAMA Internal Medicine several years ago highlighted a link between long-term use of anticholinergic medications like Benadryl and dementia... Anticholinergic drugs include some antihistamines, tricyclic antidepressants, medications..."

I am not a healthcare professional, so I have very limited medical knowledge, of course; but I think we need to treat this exciting correlation between taking Antihistamines and BC survival with caution. For as I grow older, I fear the disease of dementia even more than BC:(.

Best wishes to you all!

Yes, I saw the same study! made taking my Claritin aka Loratadine even better. I take it every night due to allergies but ha ha it's my version of an AI 🙂 which I won't take!

@lifetraveler Great point, I do recall reading that as well not that long ago, but I do know that Benadryl is a first generation antihistamin and works different from the 2nd gen , which is like Claritin, Allegra, etc. But I do wonder if that dementia risk applies to the 2nd gen - something to look into!

I am a newbie to Letrozole- only been taking 2.5 mg daily for 2 months. I did a Google search and came across similar studies so I opted to start taking loratadine 10mg. I take them together in the evening and have only had some intermittent mild bone & muscle pain. I also took loratadine when I was on Fulphila(similar to Neupogen) during chemo to help with bone pain which sometimes occur with stimulation of white blood cell production . I believe it helped - did not have bone pain.
Thank you all for your comments. Just joined Mayo Clinic connect today 😊

I take them daily. I read the same article. They help keep my knee joint pain away, as well. One time, I didn’t take them for 4 days and had horrible knee joint pain. As soon as I started taking them again, it went away.

I used to take ceterizine the generic for Zertec. I also read about the possibility of it raising your chances of dementia. So I stopped using it and have more sinus issues. I wish I knew for sure it wouldn't cause dementia. I stopped Exemestane and Anestrozole due to unbearable side effects. My body hates most medications and rebells by giving me facial hives and body aches. I'm going to do more research.

I'm actually allergic to benadryl. It's strange that you can be allergic to a drug for allergies. My oncologist confirmed it's really. I don't remember the side effects since it was at least 10 years since I tried it.

@kimogi57 Have you tried letrozole? Some people have problems with anastrozole but do ok with letrozole.