[Menopausal symptoms in breast carcinoma patients. Is effective treatment possible?]

Vasomotor complaints occuring during the menopause need treatment, and this also applies to patients with cancer, whose quality of life, already reduced by the disease, its treatment and sequelae of therapy, would otherwise decline further. While estrogen replacement therapy is employed to treat climacteric symptoms, the fact that estrogens may stimulate the growth of the mammary carcinoma cells would appear to rule out estrogen replacement in patients with breast cancer. Against this background, a stepped treatment plan is recommended, in which the initial application of symptomatic measures/placebos is followed by non-hormonal drugs and, finally, hormones. Should the results obtained be inadequate, and distress-causing symptoms persist, estrogen replacement treatment aimed at improving quality of life may be employed as a last resort, after a careful weighing up of the risks and establishment of an "informed consensus".