July 3, 2007

Letter to editor
Chicago Sun Times

Re: "Periods don't have to cramp your style," By Lauren Streicher, MD, June 29, 2007.  Available at: http://www.suntimes.com/lifestyles/streicher/448806,CST-FTR-life_streicher29.article

Dear editor:

We strongly disagree with Dr. Lauren Streicher's advice that a teenager's use of hormonal contraceptives is "safe". 

The most cancer-vulnerable time in a woman's life takes place before the birth of a first child.  Nearly 100% of the adolescent's breast lobules are immature, cancer-susceptible Type 1 and 2 lobules.  Ninety-five percent of all breast cancers begin in these lobules. 

Russo and Russo's research (Fox Chase Cancer Center) shows that the breasts do not mature into cancer-resistant lobules until the last months of a full-term pregnancy.

The same type of drugs that are used in hormone replacement therapy (HRT) are used in contraceptive steroids, but in even higher doses.  Exposing the adolescent's breasts to steroidal hormones (estrogen and progesterone and their synthetic equivalents) can result in breast cancer in one of two ways - by causing breast tissue growth that results in mutations or through the effects of estrogen as a direct carcinogen.  Estrogen overexposure is associated with the development of most breast cancers.

The World Health Organization assigned combined oral contraceptives (OCs) and combined HRT the highest classification of carcinogenicity in 2005. 

The National Cancer Institute agrees that OCs increase risk.

Last year, the New England Journal of Medicine and Mayo Clinic Proceedings each published reviews of the research showing that OCs increase risk.  The latter showed that OC use is especially dangerous before the birth of a first child.

Importantly, OCs can be delivered via the pill, transdermal patch, vaginal ring and injection.

Menstrual cramps should be treated with non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and a heating pad applied to the abdomen.

Sincerely,


Karen Malec
President   
Coalition on Abortion/Breast Cancer
Hoffman Estates, IL 
response@abortionbreastcancer.com
                                                                        847-421-4000

Angela Lanfranchi, MD, FACS
Clinical Assistant Professor of Surgery
Robert Wood Johnson Medical Center
New Brunswick, NJ
angelabcpi@yahoo.com
732-356-0770