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Everything You Need To Know About Aromatase Inhibitors

If you’re diagnosed with hormone receptor-positive breast cancer, like I was in the summer of 2022, you’ve probably learned a lot about AI — but not the AI that’s expected to disrupt virtually every industry — the AI that feels like it’s disrupting your body. I’m talking about aromatase inhibitors — anastrozole, letrozole, and exemestane — drugs that suppress your body’s estrogen production and help prevent cancer recurrence. These are most often prescribed to postmenopausal breast cancer patients because, after menopause, the ovaries relinquish their role as the primary contributors to estrogen production. (Younger breast cancer patients would be prescribed tamoxifen.)

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Articles of Interest

What you should know about Aromatase Inhibitors

Aromatase inhibitors reduce estrogen levels in the body, and in the process, prevent the stimulation of hormone-sensitive cancer cells. According to the Institute for Cancer Research (ICR) in the United Kingdom, aromatase inhibitors reduced the occurrence of death by 40% for breast cancer survivors in nine clinical trials. But for some, using aromatase inhibitors cause painful side effects, and people wonder if aromatase inhibitors really work and are worth it?

Aromatase Inhibitor Therapy: How Long Is Best

Ever since aromatase inhibitors (AIs) began to be prescribed for post-menopausal women with estrogen receptor (ER) positive breast cancers, there has been research and no definitive answer on duration. There likely will never be a one size fits all strategy.

Aromatase inhibitors better than tamoxifen at reducing risk of breast cancer recurrence in premenopausal and postmenopausal women

For women with hormone-sensitive, operable breast cancer, giving tamoxifen treatment after surgery reduces the risk of dying from breast cancer within 15 years by about one third. Aromatase inhibitors, drugs which block oestrogen production, are even more effective than tamoxifen in postmenopausal women, reducing this risk by a further 30%.

Aromatase inhibitors for breast cancer: lessons from the laboratory

Clinical trials have confirmed that aromatase inhibitors are more effective and better tolerated than tamoxifen in postmenopausal women with early or advanced ER-positive breast cancer. As such, aromatase inhibitors are set to replace tamoxifen as the standard of care for these patients.

Aromatase Inhibitors in Breast Cancer: An Overview

Current data indicate that aromatase inhibitors are equivalent or superior to tamoxifen as first-line therapy for metastatic breast cancer and as neoadjuvant treatment for primary breast cancer.

Managing Aromatase Inhibitors in Breast Cancer Survivors: Not Just for Oncologists

Aromatase inhibitors are indicated for adjuvant endocrine therapy in postmenopausal but not premenopausal women. Approximately 95% of estrogen production in premenopausal women occurs in the ovary, whereas conversion of adrenal androgens to estrogen is the predominant source of estrogen production in postmenopausal women. Aromatase inhibitors are not used in premenopausal women because the hypothalamic-pituitary-ovarian axis is activated in response to the decrease in systemic levels of estrogen after AI administration.

Tamoxifen vs. Aromatase Inhibitors – How do they work?

Both tamoxifen and aromatase inhibitors (AIs) are hormonal therapies used in the treatment of oestrogen positive (ER-positive) breast cancers to stop tumour growth and recurrence.

The 7 Best Aromatase Inhibiting Foods and Herbs

The purpose of this article is to help you understand how to use your diet to reduce aromatase and how to use the best aromatase inhibiting foods and herbs.

The Third-Generation Aromatase Inhibitors

Approximately 75% of postmenopausal women with breast cancer have hormone receptor-positive (HR+) disease. Tamoxifen was the standard of therapy for HR+ breast cancer in postmenopausal women until the advent of the selective third-generation aromatase inhibitors, which are anastrozole, letrozole, and exemestane. These agents have demonstrated superior disease-free survival in clinical trials compared with tamoxifen, but their benefit when used for more than five years in postmenopausal women with HR+ breast cancer has not been established.