an aspirin a day

Ok...I just typed out a response and then poof...!....gone!..lol.

Long term Aspirin use can possible result in ulcers, kidney problems and in rare cases..internal bleeding. It NOT recommended on chemo.

I asked my onc, who by the way didn't hear about the whole Aspirn theory, what he thought. Well...he definatly wouldnt start Aspirin while on Zometa. Even though he checks my kidney levels before every infusion...you just never know. He told me to wait untill I finish Zometa at least, that will be Jan 2011. I can wait a year...I look at things this way....at 30 yrs old I had a 1 in 200 chance of getting BC. I had a 10% chance of testing as a poor Tamox metabolizer...lol. Well, I won both of those lotteries. Im not taking a chance here. MO.

Although he said the findings were interesting....he says the are a lot more info that is needed..of course..lol.

I think the study was focussing on a low dose of Aspirin 81mg.

lexislove:

 The data included stages 1-3 women.  Over 4000 women in total with breast cancer and usable data.  The risk reduction of recurrance or death was seen equally in both ER+ and ER - women.  The risk reduction of BC death was seen to be quite pronounced in Stage III women as with the other stages.  Relative risk (the lower the better) was seen to be 0.2 in the Stage I women, 0.17 in the Stage II women, and 0.2 in the Stage 3 women for aspirin intake of 2-5 days a week.  This is compared to relative risk of 1.0 for women who reported no use of aspirin.  So that's an 80% reduction in risk of breast cancer death for the 0.2 group taking aspirin 2-5 times a week.

As for the number of women whose data was usable, is breaks down as follows in person years:

Stage I:   2688 person-years

Stage II:  1,874 person-years

Stage III: 360 person-years

I am guessing person years means number of women times the number of years of usable survey data.  At the very least it appears that all groups received near equal benefit.  About the only large variant in reduction recurrance seems to be body mass index.  The women with a BMI of more than 25kg/m2 did worse and didnt' get the same degree of benefit as the women with a lower BMI.

I like this breakdown..thank you!

Im taking home that BMI has a profound effect on outcome..besides the Aspirin. Which, we all already know. Just another reason for me to get my butt in gear...once and for all.lol.

Im glad that ER- woman can benefit just the same! This is good news...and that Stage 3 woman befit the same.

Im still wondering about chemo,rads,anti hormones though. Is there anything out there showing otherwise?

Again....I type something out an poof...! Be gone!

Im not re typing this time.

I called AstraZeneca about hair loss (it ended up being due to low Vitamin D).  The person who answered said that AstraZeneca was concerned about the number of women who do not take Arimidex as instructed.  They are working on trying to reduce side effects especially bone pain.

http://www.siteman.wustl.edu/internal.aspx?id=1119

Breast cancer patients taking the drug Arimidex to prevent recurrence of their disease sometimes suffer from bone, muscle or joint pains. Giving these patients vitamin D supplements can make the pain go away in some cases, according to Washington University physicians who treat cancer patients at the Siteman Cancer Center and Barnes-Jewish Hospital.

"We aren't certain why Arimidex would be associated with low levels of vitamin D, but scientists theorize that the drug depletes the body's stores of vitamin D by interfering with enzymes in the liver that process the vitamin," Rastelli says. "It's also interesting to note that vitamin D is scarce in most people's diets, coming mainly from whole milk, liver and fatty fish. The majority of vitamin D is produced in the skin in reaction to sunshine, but increasing avoidance of the sun and the use of sunscreens reduce that source, so it is relatively easy to become vitamin D deficient."

Here are the results of a pilot study. http://www.breastcancer.org/treatment/hormonal/new_research/20091215.jsp

High-dose vitamin D significantly reduced muscle and joint pain in breast cancer patients treated with the aromatase inhibitor anastrozole (Arimidex), results of a small, randomized clinical trial showed.

Weekly vitamin D supplementation led to significant improvement in pain and mobility after two months. The improvement began to dissipate after patients were switched to a monthly supplementation schedule and had largely disappeared by four to six months....

Additionally, inclusion criteria should be expanded to accommodate women with normal vitamin D levels, in light of recent evidence of significant differences in aromatase inhibitor-induced musculoskeletal pain in women with serum vitamin D levels >66 ng/mL (Breast Cancer Res Treat 2010; 119: 111-118).

Researchers should also consider other forms of vitamin D, they added. Cholecalciferol [D3], for example, maintains more stable serum vitamin D levels than the ergocalciferol [D2]  used in the study.

The study was supported by AstraZeneca.

The short answer is to reduce or possibly eliminate bone pain from Arimidex, your Vitamin D level should be around 66ng/ml

There are so many things that are supposed to reduce recurrence risks.   I wish the NIH could sort observational, double blind and non-human studies under major and minor headings such as

CANCER: 

Nutritional Supplements

Foods

Vitamins and Minerals

As it is now, we are getting our information through the news or through forums like this.  Doctors seldom go into detail about the above.