Abortion drug could help reduce risk of breast cancer, group of medics says | Women’s health

A drug used in medical abortions could help prevent high risk of breast cancer to develop the disease, according to an international group of doctors and scientists.

However, “stigmatization” around mifepristone prevents pharmaceutical companies from studying its potential as a new treatment that doctors could propose to reduce the risk of breast cancer, they say.

Companies seem reluctant to carry out tests despite the fact that three previous studies have all revealed that the drug promises as a means of slowing the growth of cancer cells.

The role of Mifepristone in medical abortions and the fact that access to abortion is limited in certain countries prevents essential research, say experts.

It is one of the two drugs, alongside Misoprostol, that women in the United Kingdom take at the end of a pregnancy that started up to 10 weeks earlier. They take a mifepristone tablet, then wait 24 to 48 hours, then take the misoprostol.

“It is deeply disappointing that the successful application of mifepristone in a field of clinical medicine hinders more in-depth research on other indications that could benefit public health,” said the article written by eight co-authors and published in the obstetrics Lancet, gynecology and women’s health. All are reproductive health or reproductive cancer experts working in London, Edinburgh, Stockholm and Erbil in Iraq.

“Time has been expected for a long time to give Mifepristone the opportunity it deserves to be studied as a non -surgical option for primary prevention [of breast cancer]They add.

Breast cancer is the most common women’s cancer in most countries in the world and kills around 670,000 women worldwide each year, according to the World Health Organization.

Although on a small scale, the three previous studies have proposed evidence that mifepristone can limit the effect of the progesterone hormone, which leads to cell growth found in breast cancer. They were published in 2008, 2022 and 2024.

Miffepristone is a type of medication known as the selective modulator of the progesterone receptor.

If it is proven that he was working, it could help women who run a high risk of breast cancer, like those who carry a variant of the BRCA1 or BRCA2 genes. Currently, they are offered surgical options for their treatment, such as mastectomy or drugs that are “low efficiency”, according to the authors.

UK Cancer Carities approved the advocacy so that pharmaceutical companies seriously examine the role that Mifepristone could play in breast cancer care and so that governments make it possible to ensure regulations that restrict its use to abortion.

Dr. Simon Vincent, the scientific director of breast cancer Now, said: “Treatment options more reduced by the risks for women with a high risk of developing breast cancer, which also protects their quality of life, are desperately necessary. And we have to explore all avenues, including existing drugs, to achieve this.

“Early research on mifepristone is therefore an important step and we need additional studies to understand if these drugs are safe and effective.”

Dr. Marianne Baker, responsible for the scientific commitment of cancer Research UK, said that the 57,900 new diagnostics of a year of breast cancer in Great Britain have shown that “it is essential that we are investing in research exploring new ways of preventing disease”.

She added: “Cancer develops when cells develop uncontrollable. The first studies have shown that mifepristone has slowed cell growth in breast tissue, so it could be useful to delay or prevent cancer.

“But we need more research to understand if it’s effective, how it works and that would benefit the most.”

Professor Kristina Gemzell Danielsson, the main author of the play, and who heads the Department of Health of Women and Children at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, said: “Stigmatization around mifepristone used for abortion describes part of the reason why mifepristone is no more in -depth for prevention of breast cancer.

“Together, our data supports the use of mifepristone for the prevention of breast cancer of bad prognosis. All studies have been randomized controlled trials using a low dose of mifepristone for two or three months. ”