Progesterone a cause of breast cancer in young women?

AnneMarieV

I was diagnosed with HER2+, hormone negative breast cancer at 33 while still breastfeeding my one year old baby. During my pregnancy, I was at a high risk for early delivery because of a short cervix so I took a daily progesterone vaginal suppository for 4 months. Shortly after the birth I had a hormonal iud put in which I realize now is also progesterone. I've read a bit about progesteronehormone therapy in post-menopausal women causing breast cancer... Is it possible there is a connection?

inks

In your case it is unlikely that the progesteroone was the culprit since you are ER and PR negatiive. I had the Mirena IUD and my gynecological oncologist said Mirena was not the cause of my BC since I am PR negative. And the suppository and IUD are local , very little progesterone should get anywhere else in the body.

toomuch

AnneMarieV - I don't know if the Mirena IUD or progesterone suppositories were contributing factors to you developing breast cancer but I wanted to clarify something that Inks said above. The progesterone suppositories that are used in women with low progesterone to help maintain a pregnancy are systemically absorbed which allows them to increase systemic progesterone. I too used progesterone during my pregnancy and my breast cancer was ER/PR positive. I believe that the risks to developing BC are multifactorial and we will probably never know the one thing that triggered ours. There are several other threads on this topic and if you search Mirena you may find additional information on this.

macb04

The artificial progestins are linked to increased bc risk, I was on Mirena3 years before bc diag. Progesterone by itself does not seemed to be linked to much bc risk in comparison. I know that I had severe depression develop while on Mirena, along with crazy weight gain, so I doubt it wasn't having a systemic effect. I was shocked about the Depo shot having such a huge increased risk of breast ca, I had no idea it was such a dangerous risk. Frightening to think thq WHO, the Depo manufacturer and the FDA are so very egregiously irresponsible and greedy . In another life all those people probably worked for Hitler doing experiments on helpless captives. They should be hauled in front of a court and given life sentences for the women's lives they have knowingly destroyed or women they have killed by their profit mongering.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1974841/

http://www.lifeissues.net/writers/kah/kah_04progestins.html

Here is an abstract about Mirena and breast ca http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26243443