Any 10 year survivors with no recurrence ILC and no chemo?

Hi

i have used Tumeric and green tea for about 1 year. I put 1/4 tsp in 1/2 tbsp olive oil with a couple of twists of a pepper mill (just like it says in the "anti-cancer" book by Davis Shervan (can't remember his last name).  I have no clue if it works but what I did notice was that my neutrophils were super low (1.5) and same as my WBC (2.4 - 3 is normal). When I went off all of that stuff because i needed to do Prophylactic surgery in 2 1/2 weeks everythink was back up to normal.

I think that stuff is super anti-inflammatory and I will definitely be going back on it all in a week from now. I am just giving my body time to heal. I said to my husband that I was doing a chemo without the side effects! And even though my numbers were so low and I was very concerned about it at first - I rarely got sick (only 1- 24 hour flu from my kids). My kids at least 3 colds and 2 flu's in that time period.

The tumeric is a blood thinner so much that 5 weeks ago when I went to get bloodwork for my upcoming surgery they asked if I was on Coumadin - so you do not want to take it anytime around surgery (green tea might be a bit of a blood thinner also). I also know that I have NEVER had as good chloesterol numbers as when I was doing the Olive oil/tumeric thing so probably not a bad thing either way.

Tumeric is listed as an ingredient in French's Mustard in Canada but it probably only has a little bit in it (so probably not such a great source). Good Luck!

Arimidex most certainly is experimental. They are still testing it to see if it has any overall survival value. See Dr. Eric Winer's video where he explains one of the trials shows a small overall survival and the other trial shows slighly LESS overall survival value. Arimidex looked great when it first came out because it was so much better for recurrence in the first few years. Then that advance did not pan out as the years wore on. Less recurrence in the first few years did not translate into overall survival benefit. You can look all this up.

Blessings to all. We face hard decisions. All mine have been made by looking up the studies and asking my doctors to show me in the literature where my chances of living longer improve. Usually, they just say that they have to follow the treatment guidelines, not the evidence.

Here is research on anastrozole/arimidex http://www.cancer.gov/clinicaltrials/results/summary/2004/atac1204

Just because researchers continue to monitor and investigate the effects of a drug does not mean that it is experimental.

Specifically about survival (and this is only as compared with tamox, not as compared to no hormone therapy):

"This analysis continued to show a benefit of anastrozole compared with tamoxifen. Among women with hormone receptor-positive tumors, those randomly assigned to receive treatment with anastrozole had a 4.3 percent lower absolute rate of breast cancer recurrence after 10 years, and a 2.6 percent lower absolute rate of distant metastasis, than those randomly assigned to receive treatment with tamoxifen."

This is one of the studies that provided the basis for the above. It also says about overall survival:

"After adjustment for potential prognostic factors (age, tumor size and grade, lymph node status, and type of primary surgery), switching to adjuvant anastrozole from adjuvant tamoxifen still resulted in a statistically significant improvement in disease-free survival (HR, 0.61; 95% CI, 0.40 to 0.93; P = .023) and overall survival (HR, 0.48; 95% CI, 0.25 to 0.91; P = .026) compared with continuing on tamoxifen." http://jco.ascopubs.org/content/25/19/2664.long

Later research has shown that letrozole (rather than arimidex) may be especially useful in ILC, as compared to tamox (and as compared to nothing).

There is definitely downside with these drugs, no argument there. However, with advanced cancers at least, it seems pretty clear that the benefit outweighs the downside.

Since tamox is the older drug and has proved beneficial, no doctor is going to sign off on a study that involves lerozole or arimidex compared to nothing. It would be unethical. Since it has already been proved that tamox gives benefit as opposed to doing nothing, it is entirely reasonable to compare the benefit of subsequent drugs to tamox.

Let's say you invented a new diabetes drug tomorrow. A drug that was supposed to be an alternative to insulin. You would not be allowed to do a trial measuring your drug against insulin-dependent diabetics going without drugs. A trial would compare how people fared on your drug compared to how people fare on insulin. 

That is not at all what I said, and I hope you do know that. If there is a treatment with proven value, you can't do a study that involves withholding treatment from one arm of the study.

Just want to point out Natty's mistake.  Arimidex was patented and given permission to sell to the public in April 1997.  At that date - here in Canada - Arimidex was granted a "Notice of Compliance" dating from 1997-2012.  This essentially legal document provides, among other things, a Drug Identification Number that must appear on all Arimidex packaging, and information about how Arimidex is to be used.  The NOC is, also, a patent document per se, allowing the manufacturer a certain amount of time to recoup research- and development fees, before the patent goes public.

Once an NOC is approved and the DIN # assigned, the drug goes to market.  It is no longer "experimental.  It has, already, passed all its safety and efficacy tests and is deemed safe to provide to the public under the guidelines established by the NOC.  But it doesn't stop there.  Many pharmaceutical firms continue to study the effects of the drug as it is used by a wider demographic.  This in no way applies that the drug is still experimental.  It is not.  It is a marketed drug that is available for sale.  Not a retricted drug available only in a clinical trial setting.

Arimidex is; therefore, not an experimental drug for the treatment of breast cancer, although it is a new drug that the company who manufactures it is still gathering data about.  Drug studies are on-going, all-the-time, and the existance of a follow-up study does not mean that the drug is still "experimental'.  If that were so, then drugs like Aspirin, and theophylline would still be "experimental".  A drug stops being experimental once it passes it's safety and efficacy tests for its primary focus, and a government regulation body decides that it's safe to market to the public for that specific condition.  Just because a manufacturer or group of researchers continue to study the drug once its available to a wider demographic just means they are fleshing out the "personality" of the drug by adding additional pertinent information to it about long-term effects.  And, it is true, sometimes a drug that performs spectacularly in a clinical/experimental setting doesn't always mean that it will continue to do so in a larger population.  Unexpected things can happen when the drug exits the heavily controlled research facility and it is not unheard of to have a so-called "miracle drug" get pulled from the market, because a number of nasty- and irreversible side effects have reared their ugly heads.

As for Arimidex's clinically important side effects, they are, as follows: peripheral edema (8-10%), hot flashes (13-35%), nausea (11-19%), hypercholesterolemia (7), fractures (6-11%), osteoporosis (7%), arthalgia/myalgia (5-36%), headache (9-14%), vaginal dryness (3%).

The cardiovascular effects that Natty claims are inescapable if you take Arimidex are extremely rare and tend to be restricted to those patients already suffering from ischemic heart disease and other heart/circulation issues.  For perfectly healthy patients with perfectly healthy hearts the risk is minimal.  Patients with osteoporosis need to be monitored carefully while on Arimidex.

Arimidex has favourable qualities: It does not interfere with the production of other steriods (i.e., adrenal) or thyroide stimulating hormones.)  It does not have progestognic, androgenic or estrogenic activity.  It is a week inhibitor of cytochrome P450 in vitro and is not expected to have clinically significant interactions with drugs that metabolize using cytochrome P450.  Patients with renal failure or mild-to moderate hepatic failure can take Arimidex fairly safely, but need to be closely monitored just like osteoporosis patients do.

Arimidex can only be deemed an "experimental" drug once again if the company decides to test it for something other than breast cancer.  This is what the Metformin clinical trial is doing.  Metformin for diabetes is a well-established and reliable treatment and; therefore, not experimental, but Metformin for the treatment of early breast cancer is in the experimental stages.

So, if you've been recommended to take Arimidex as treatment for your breast cancer, you are NOT taking an experimental drug.  You're taking a drug that was specifically formulated- and tested for hormone-positive breast cancer treatment.  If your doctor is recommending Arimidex for you, he- or she has their reasons.  Ask them what they are.  If you're still not comfortable, get a second (or a third) opinion.  Please don't make up your mind about what could be an important factor in your treatment protocol without informing yourself properly by objective opinions from reputable medical/health practitioners.  Then, if YOU feel that it's just not for you, then you've made a well-thought-out decision about what is right for YOU.

In closing, someone on an internet discussion board who tells you that you'll die of a heart attack or stroke if you take Arimidex is, in my opinion, just not a good source of information.  Just because they don't want to take it, doesn't mean that it may be a bad choice for you.  Just make sure you understand all the facts about the treatment that pertain to your particular situation, and not just the opinion of someone who's already decided - for whatever reason - that Arimidex isn't for THEM.

"... good girls never made history ..."

Also, a friend elected not to use either one because she had horrific SEs from both...i.e, blood clot from Tamoxifen. She is 5 years out and doing fine.

By the way, immune XL is made from yew, which is also what taxotere and taxol are made from.