Preventing Tumours - 10 Things To Note.
Fermín Apezteguia The health of women reaching menopause is principally threatened by three illnesses: cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis and breast cancer. The document presented by the Spanish specialists in Amsterdam contains an innovative proposal to help reduce the number of women who develop breast cancer following the menopause. It is called chemoprevention, and forms part of a series of initiatives aimed at containing the advance of this disease. The idea is to treat post-menopausal women who have a high risk of breast cancer with drugs. So who are the women in this risk group? Not, as one might expect, women whose families have a history of the disease, but those with other risk factors such as having had their first period at an early age, late menopause, a first pregnancy at an advanced age or a history of tumours. In Spain, the number of such women could be two million. At the moment, this post-menopausal treatment is still only an idea, although internat...