We recommend that listeners exercise self-care when listening to this podcast, as some may find the content upsetting.

Let’s be upfront about the side effects of hormone-blocking therapies for the treatment of hormone receptor positive breast cancer.

About 70% of breast cancers are hormone receptor positive, meaning that the breast cancer cells use these hormones to grow.

Hormone-blocking therapy is usually prescribed as part of the treatment as works by lowering the amount of oestrogen in the body or blocking the oestrogen receptors on the cancer cells, depriving them of the hormones they need to grow, with the aim of reducing the risk of breast cancer coming back, or new breast cancer developing.

In this episode we’re joined by Debbie Packham who was diagnosed with early breast cancer in 2016 and 4 weeks later was diagnosed with oligometastatic breast cancer and has been on hormone-blocking therapy for 4 years, Ro Woods who was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2020 and has been on hormone-blocking therapy for 5 months and Lisa Sheeran who has worked with breast cancer patients for over 21 years and has been a breast care nurse for 9 years.

We’ll hear about the different types of hormone-blocking therapies, the common side effects and impacts on quality of life, the key benefits, effective strategies and the support available to help you manage your treatment.

Resources:

·       Sign up to My Journey and access a range of resources on hormone-blocking therapy for early breast cancer and managing the impacts of hormone-blocking therapy for the long term

·       Visit our Online Network to connect with people going through a similar experience

·       Watch our hormone-blocking therapy webcast

To help us continue to develop podcasts that are relevant to our members and their breast cancer diagnosis, we ask for your feedback via our online survey.

Upfront About Breast Cancer is a production of Breast Cancer Network Australia. Our theme music is by the late Tara Simmons, and this episode is proudly brought to you by Dry July.

Want to get in touch? Visit our website at bcna.org.au, email us at [email protected], or call our Helpline on 1800 500 258