Pregnancy and Lactation: Risk or Protective Factors for Breast Cancer?

Pregnancy and lactation represent the most effective protective elements against breast cancer; counter-intuitively breast cancer incidence shows a small but noticeable increase up to 5 years after delivery. The cumulative effect is however favourable and women show a reduction in breast cancer risk which is proportional to the total duration of lactation and to the number of full-term pregnancies.

Lactation during and after Breast Cancer.

Breastfeeding is an important aspect of mother-newborn relationship and is of great benefit for the baby. Unfortunately, many drugs taken by the mother may pass into her milk and exert an effect on the newborn. Very limited data is available and a cautionary approach is warranted especially when the woman receives anticancer treatment including chemotherapy , hormonal treatment and the recently introduced target agents as well as monoclonal antibodies. In all these conditions breastfeeding should be put on hold.More and more often physicians are faced with women that are pregnant years after the diagnosis of cancer: this has long been considered dangerous for the mother, but data show that prognosis is definitely not worse. If the woman is no longer being actively treated, breastfeeding is advisable every time it is possible, even if patients that received breast radiation may be unable to produce a sufficient amount of milk on that side.

Biosimilars for breast cancer.

Introduction: Cancer treatment has evolved significantly with the introduction of biologic agents, especially in the breast cancer (BC) area. The use of trastuzumab for HER2 amplified BCsignificantly improves survival in both metastatic and early stage disease. Although the efficacy of biologics is undeniable, their high costs increased the expenses of cancer care, becoming a problem to health-care systems, mainly in low and middle-income, but also for high-income countries. In an attempt to lower the costs and allow a greater access of biologics to cancer patients, biosimilars are rapidly being developed as an alternative to the reference biologics. Areas covered: A literature review based on the MEDLINE/PubMed search about biosimilars allied with the FDA and EMA's latest statements of this topic were conducted to summarize the development and the use of currently available biosimilars for BC, with a focus on trastuzumab. Expert opinion: Biosimilars are drugs that have similar efficacy and safety profile to those of the original biological product with equivalent immunogenicity and, as these agents hold the potential to improve patient´s access to monoclonal antibodies because their production costs are estimated to be 20-30% lower compared to the reference product, they are progressively being incorporated into clinical practice.