Concerned about the side effects of anastrozole

@monical my appt yesterday with a new oncologist, the first thing he said is he doesn't use tamoxifen with only pre menopause women and he called it old school.
My first oncologist asked me right away if I have ever had blood clots or high blood pressure because he was going to give me tamoxifen as soon as I said no he crossed it off.
Please please please either go for second opinion or push for an answer!
Unfortunately, we have had to learn to be self advocates!

@colleenyoung Hi~ I met with the medical oncologist twice (once before the surgery and then again afterwards). I tried to give her a very full picture of who I was medically because I knew that these medications could potentially impact certain systems. My husband keeps saying that “she really doesn’t know me” and to some extent I agree with him. She really wanted to push the Tomoxifen but I pushed back because of the family history but even her response to that was that I could talk to my cardiologist but she didn’t think it would be a problem. I put my foot down and why would my cardiologist make that call? I don’t want to trade one problem for another! I know the liver info was presented to her because I see it in the clinical notes (patient portal). It wasn’t until I read the drug info sheet that patient should notify doctor if they have certain conditions that I started to worry that there might be an oversight. I don’t have liver disease, but those elevated enzymes continue to be monitored by my gastro/primary. Anyway, I called the oncologist’s office yesterday morning to ask my questions and I’m still waiting for an answer from the doctor - more than 24 hours later I am still waiting...that does not make me happy. So I will wait...and maybe consider a second opinion...I don’t know...

No point in being scared before you have a problem . You may be lucky and not have the same problems . Be mindful but not scared .

Good question ! Bet there is no study to show the differences .

@samy
No, the noted study does not get into all the fine points which may interest you, but it does indicate that aromatase inhibitors were significantly more effective than tamoxiphen for postmenopausal women, and that recurrence rates differed little by age, stage, grade (body mass index, progesterone receptor status, or HER2 status) in the various therapy groups of the almost 32,000 patients in the study -- important points in which you appeared to be interested.

Wow! This study is really interesting. Summation: Interpretation
Aromatase inhibitors reduce recurrence rates by about 30% (proportionately) compared with tamoxifen while treatments differ, but not thereafter. 5 years of an aromatase inhibitor reduces 10-year breast cancer mortality rates by about 15% compared with 5 years of tamoxifen, hence by about 40% (proportionately) compared with no endocrine treatment.

I would love to see this test with a placebo included in the mix, rather than a simple comparison of two drugs. Also - age specific results. It still doesn’t answer the question of age specific morbidity stats for Stage 1 with radiation OR radiation+AI OR radiation+placebo … THAT is a study that would give answers to me and many others. If anyone finds that study, you will become my new best friend (lucky you).

@farmgirl1556 @francine6829

As posted a few days ago, I would encourage you to read the meta-analysis on aromatase inhibitors versus tamoxifen which I believe addresses some of your questions. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140673615610741

@cindylb
Cindy, I'm hopeful for you both. The NET is treated like an oat cell ca. NET is a wait and see-type of cancer. It is found by the type of staining on pathology slides and is missed many times because pathologists don't always do the proper staining. I was lucky as pathologists caught mine. I wish you both the very best....keep us posted.

Hello trixie1313 and thank you for sharing your information with me. Alas, we have had the most complete pathology available done to the tumor tissue and gotten second opinions and.....we've done it all. There is a chance it is enteric adeonocarcinoma of the lung, a lung cancer that they say is 'rare' but looks more to me like it's just under diagnosed. We've been watching and waiting for over a year now for the cancer to show up somewhere else (in the upper GI tract) to rule out those type of cancers and it has not. So, they are leaning toward this supposed 'rare' type of lung cancer. They even sent the tumor out for the most extensive type of cancer as the doctors are frustrated as well.
It is not common but sometimes cancers appear and then actually regress or go away and we never knew we had them. This was caught purely through a test for something else. At the time it was diagnosed my husband was in bad shape and feeling truly awful, so he presented as a very ill man. His symptoms were from a heart condition however that was easily fixed. Now he has no symptoms of any kind of cancer and has not this whole time. It's truly odd.
I am going to look into neuroendocrine tumor of the lung and the oat cell ca of the lung as well.

Thank you! Hugs!!