2/12/2004

Paxil and BREAST CANCER

http://www.drugawareness.org/Archives/Survivors/record0002.html

"...the information about Paxil explained why I should have gotten two tumors in the same year."

In 2001, I had breast cancer twice!! My mammogram on 2/28/01 showed a tumor in one breast and a questionable area in the other. I had a lumpectomy for the first tumor ( invasive ductal carcinoma), and, seven months later (after a second mammogram and biopsy), a second lumpectomy for the second tumor ( mucinous invasive ductal carcinoma.)

It was when I was reading PROZAC: PANACEA OR PANDORA? in the summer of 2002 that I learned that a couple of small studies had linked Paxil to breast cancer. I had taken Paxil for seven months, from 11/99 to 6/00, to see whether it would help a migraine problem that has plagued me for many years. My dose was small, and if not for Dr. Tracy's book I never would have made the connection with my cancers. Yet for me, the information about Paxil explained why I should have gotten two tumors in the same year. (I had had breast cancer once before, in 1971, and had had a lumpectomy at that time, when it was a very controversial procedure. I had been squeaky clean since then -- until the new tumors in 2001.)

I am posting this because the connection between an SSRI and a tumor first seen some eight months later isn't as obvious as some other drug side effects people experience. However, I want to suggest that readers of this message board stay on the alert for this kind of connection. I believe Dr. Tracy says that other SSRI's could cause cell proliferation as well -- but the studies I know about are on Paxil, and that was the drug I took. I am also posting and ADR notice to the FDA.