genetic differences may explain why some on AIs have worse joint point than others

[Lani]

...now let them figure out how best to treat it

http://www.uphs.upenn.edu/news/News_...tic-influence/

[Hopeful]

Something that puzzles me is that I thought that inflammation was a pro-cancer process, and these drugs induce inflammation in some people. Would that not be a contra-indication to taking this class of drug in and of itself?

I also like the subtlty of the following quote from the article:

"The most significant predictors for stopping therapy were a previous history of taking tamoxifen, which can also cause arthralgia and other symptoms; having other inflammatory conditions such as arthritis; communication about difficulties with taking AIs, and being married." (emphasis added).

Being married, I infer, is a euphemism for "being sexually active," which is most definitely a challenge on these drugs.

Hopeful

[Lani]

I think the operative words here are "in some people"

Perhaps those who experience more inflammation on AIs are the ones at higher risk for cancer recurrence...perhaps the timing of the inflammation has something to do with whether it will act like a Prince awakening the Sleeping Beauty (in this case Monster) of dormant cancer stem cells.

Probably very complicated.

[Hopeful]

I agree. As we learn more about how drugs interact with cancer, it would not surprise me to find that there is a continuum of possible reactions to any given drug for each particular patient, that ranges from a "cure" at one end of the spectrum to cancer promotion at the other end. Finding out where on the spectrum any particular patient will fall at any point in their treatment, based on their individual biology, will be the hard part.

Hopeful

[Becky]

Of course I always thought that certain side effects (of any drug) should run in families as do allergies and other reactions.

I never had joint issues with Arimidex and nor does my mom or my cousin.

[AlaskaAngel]

I never ran in to any joint issues by taking an AI either, but I took it for only 2 days before stopping. That was over 6 years ago. I might have taken it longer than that had the oncologist been truthful with me in the first place about the issues that were known at the time to be of question in regard to HER2 patients with the tamoxifen I'd been taking for 1 3/4 years. As a patient I prefer honesty to speculation that is limited to what these drugs might do for me.

A.A.

T1c, NED