[Barbara2]

(I'm not sure how this little face appeared in the heading, but I can't make it go away!)

I reached 5 years of Arimidex this past March 2008. My onc said he would prefer that I continue the Arimidex (rather than not taking it anymore). He felt that it was important to keep knocking down the ER+.

We had been discussing hypothyroidism, and I mentioned the ongoing battle of trying to lose weight, and he agreed that excess weight and ER+ is another reason to continue with the Arimidex.

He had his nurse look into trials for people who had been on Arimidex for 5 years. She found one that uses a placebo with 1/2 of the participants, the other half get letrozole. We didn't discuss the details because we knew that I would not be interested in taking a chance of getting the placebo. That was the only trial she mentioned.

I thought that maybe at my next 3 month visit, I may ask what he thinks about changing to Letrozole (Femara). There is probably little or no difference between Arimidex and Letrozole, so I'm not sure why one would want to switch.

Becky, could you please elaborate on the discussion you had with your onc concerning Aromasin and the Efects trial. What did the trail show?

I understand that Aromasin contains 25 mg of exemestane, an irreversible, steroidal aromatase inactivator, but what exactly that means, I'm not sure.
"Steroidal" would probably pack on more pounds!....?