•Progestins can produce clinical benefit in a subset of women with metastatic endometrial cancer.•Corticosteroid-related effects of megestrol can cause morbidity over the long term.•Norethindrone is a progestin without corticosteroid side effects.•A switch from megestrol to norethindrone decreased toxicity with continued benefit.•A clinical trial of norethindrone for this population of patients...

Anti-aromatase agents now have a central role in the management of breast cancer in postmenopausal women; they are superior to megestrol acetate as second-line therapy and to tamoxifen for initial therapy of metastatic disease. They also are highly active as neoadjuvant therapy. Two classes of anti-aromatase agents are available: steroidal (eg, exemestane) and nonsteroidal (eg, anastrozole, let...

Twelve postmenopausal women suffering from advanced breast cancer had plasma estrogens, androgens, cortisol, and gonadotropins determined before therapy and during treatment with megestrol acetate (MA) in oral doses escalated from 40 to 160 mg. The plasma clearance and production rate of estrone and estrone sulfate were determined before treatment and after 4 weeks of therapy with 160 mg MA. Tr...

Clinical question " What treatments are available for hot flushes in women receiving tamoxifen? " A 62-year-old woman asked her radiation oncologist this question. She was taking tamoxifen as adjuvant treatment for node-positive breast cancer, but was experiencing persistent and frequent hot flushes. The search question was refined to " What treatments can be added to tamoxifen to reduce the fr...

Cancer cachexia is a multifactorial syndrome characterized by involuntary loss of skeletal muscle and fat, reduced quality of life and decreased survival. Unlike starvation, weight loss cannot be fully reversed by increasing caloric intake. Interventions, such as nutritional counseling or currently available appetite stimulants such as megestrol acetate have limited benefits. Recently, there ha...

OBJECTIVE The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the hormonal profile of patients of postmenopausal age during estrogen replacement therapy (ERT) with special reference to the serum levels of biologically active FSH (B-FSH) in a self-adjusted ERT model. DESIGN The hormonal values found have been correlated to climateric symptoms reported by the patients (scored by the Kupperman meno...