Amenorrhea after lung cancer treatment

More than 5,000 premenopausal women are diagnosed with lung cancer annually in the United States. Limited data exist regarding the risk of treatment-related amenorrhea, a surrogate for infertility and early menopause, after systemic therapies for lung cancer.

Premenopausal women diagnosed with lung cancer under age 50 were surveyed at diagnosis and annually thereafter about their menstrual status as a part of the Mayo Clinic Epidemiology and Genetics of Lung Cancer Research Program. Types of lung cancer-directed treatments were recorded, and frequencies of self-reported menopause at each survey were calculated.

A cohort of 182 premenopausal women were included in this study, with average age at lung cancer diagnosis 43 years (SD 6). Among the 85 patients who received chemotherapy, 64% self-reported that they had become menopausal within a year of diagnosis. Platinum salts were universally included in these chemotherapy regimens, and the majority of these women also received taxanes within 1 year of diagnosis. Only 15% of the 94 patients who did not receive systemic therapy within 1 year of diagnosis experienced self-reported menopause. Three patients received targeted therapy alone, two of whom remained premenopausal at the final qualifying survey, completed a median of 3 years after diagnosis.

Chemotherapy for lung cancer patients appears to increase risk of early loss of menses in survivors.