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Page: << Prev | 1 | 2 The number of hot flashes continued to decline over 12 weeks and reached a mean of 8.1 hot flashes per week. Moreover, the number of very severe hot flashes dropped to near zero by the end of the 12th week, according to the report.
In addition, the number of night awakenings dropped from an average of 19.5 per week before the injection to an average of 7.3 per week in the first two weeks after the procedure. Night awakenings continued to decrease, to an average of 1.4 per week by the end of the study.
"This is a big advance in treatment for women," Lipov said. "Women with severe hot flashes should really be treated with this."
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One expert thinks that this might be a good way of controlling a serious side effect in breast cancer treatment.
"Most women experience hot flashes," said Dr. Joanne Mortimer, vice chairwoman of medical oncology at the City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center in Duarte, Calif. "And they interfere with normal activity in 15 percent."
"In addition, 65 percent of women treated for breast cancer experience hot flashes, and we cannot use estrogen replacement in these folks," Mortimer said. "Relief of symptoms is important for all women but is especially a need in the breast cancer survivor population."
Another expert was cautious about the benefits of this treatment and said more data was needed before it could become widely accepted.
"While it looks like the study produced meaningful results for many of the women in the trial, this is a tiny study, which did not go on for very long," said Barbara A. Brenner, executive director of Breast Cancer Action.
Brenner added that because the procedure involves injections and the use of fluoroscopy, which is radiation, it could increase the risk of cancer among women who have had radiation therapy for breast cancer.
"All of which is to say that, while some women will be so seriously affected by hot flashes and disruptions of sleep to want to do this, it would be good to have considerably more data both in terms of numbers studied and long-term side effects before touting it," Brenner said.
More information
For more on hot flashes, visit the U.S. National Library of Medicine.
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