TAMPA, Fla. (AP) -- Antidepressants may also help ease the misery of hot flashes, according to a small study that suggests Paxil relieves the effects of estrogen withdrawal in women being treated for breast cancer.
Estrogen pills are the standard medicine for the hot flashes, mood swings and night sweats of menopause, but they are often not recommended for women at high risk of breast cancer.Women who are already on estrogen are typically told to stop taking the hormone after a diagnosis of breast cancer.
Cancer treatment can itself trigger menopause in younger women. Doctors say about half of breast cancer patients complain of hot flashes, a sudden spike of temperature that makes them break into a sweat and want to pull off their clothing.
At Georgetown University Medical Center in Washington, doctors noticed that the problem sometimes seems to ease when women go on antidepressants called selective serotonin-reuptake inhibitors. In a pilot study, they gave Paxil, one brand of these prescription drugs, to 30 women.
They started out at 10 milligrams daily for one week, then upped the dose to 20 milligrams a day for four weeks. On the pills, the frequency of hot flashes fell by two-thirds and their intensity eased by three-quarters. Afterward, 25 of the women chose to continue taking Paxil.
"Women can tell fairly quickly whether this drug will work for them," Dr. Vered Stearns said at an American Cancer Society meeting in Tampa. "The women called and thanked me."
She said a larger study will start soon to see how Paxil compares to dummy pills. This study will also enroll women who are going through menopause but don't have cancer. In other studies, about one-third of women report improvement when taking placebos.