Tamoxifen after 5 years Femara?

ck55

I posted this on the Hormonal Thread but I thought I would post it here too.

OK. I had an appointment with my onc yesterday and we discussed the problem I am having with vaginal atrophy. A couple of years ago I had this same issue along with constant UTI's (every 4 weeks!) and my onc OKed the estring. Everything was going great, I was having my estradiol levels checked periodically and they were staying low. Then all of a sudden after about a year of using this product my levels shot up to 80. So we both decided no more estring.

Well that was about a year ago and up until now things "down there" have been tolerable, but now seems to be getting worse (more painful sex). I haven't had any UTI's for over a year so I can try other remedies for the discomfort.

Because of the size/stage and nodal status of my tumor she is thinking (as am I) that I should stay on some anti hormonal for another few years. What she did suggest is that if I can tough it out through the next 6 months when I complete my five years of Femara, then perhaps she can put me on Tamoxifen and I can go back to using the estring since serum levels of estradiol would not really be much of a concern since Tamoxifen  works in a different way.

Anyway my question is () has anybody else ever done this type of regimen? I know I have read about being on tamoxifen for a couple of years and then switching to an AI  for 5 years and the great statistics for that. Do  you think basically doing the same thing in reverse would have the same reduction of recurrence?

Anybody ever see any studies like this?

Thanks for taking the time to read all this!

Cyndi

voraciousreader

The best place to check would be to google the 2012 NCCN breast cancer treatment guidelines, the professionals version, NOT patients and read pages 92-98. It discusses all the recent studies and ongoing studies for endocrine therapy.