A study currently underway in Canada may provide more reliable results. Postmenopausal women with very small, low-grade tumors, however, may experience only a small overall benefit from tamoxifen. After menopause, women have lower levels of estrogen in their bodies. Studies have shown that women in this group who undergo chemotherapy but do not take tamoxifen may live as long as women of the same age with no history of breast cancer. Because tamoxifen can cause rare, serious side effects such as blood clotting and endometrial cancer, postmenopausal women and their physicians should weigh the benefits of taking the drug against the risks.
Many people take low-dose aspirin on a daily basis to help prevent heart attacks.
They set out to find whether eradicating H. pylori infection reduces the risk of recurrent GI bleeding in these patients. In other words, for patients on low-dose aspirin, the treatments were almost equal. The results were very different for patients taking naproxen. The study suggests that patients with a history of GI bleeding who take low-dose aspirin to prevent heart attacks should be tested for H. pylori infection and treated if the infection is found to be present. For years, estrogen replacement therapy was the drug of choice for treatment of osteoporosis in postmenopausal women.