Professor Donal Brennan of Systems Biology Ireland (SBI) University College Dublin has published a featured review on menopause treatment for cancer patients in this week’s issue of the high-impact journal, The Lancet.
“Managing Menopause After Cancer,” from Brennan and colleagues identifies the impact of early menopause and the severity of menopausal symptoms in cancer survivors, providing evidence-based recommendations from the current literature toward implementing a more personalised and multidisciplinary approach in treatment of menopause symptoms after cancer. The review looks at a number of factors including patient cancer types, age, socioeconomic status and cultural practices at play.
Brennan, who is Professor of Gynaecological Oncology in the UCD School of Medicine and Principal Investigator in the Precision Oncology Ireland strategic partnership programme, as well as a gynaecological oncologist in the Mater Misericordiae University Hospital in Dublin, is the senior author on the paper.
“Patients have repeatedly highlighted the burden of menopause symptoms after cancer treatment. They feel that these are often minimised or in some cases ignored,” said Brennan. “We hope that this paper will provide a summary of evidence-based approaches to treat menopause symptoms, including the use of HRT if indicated and more importantly stimulate more research in this area.”
The article comes at an important juncture in cancer research where cancer survivorship is improving, but the long-term effects of treatment and quality of life issues are coming to the fore. “Managing Menopause After Cancer” specifically looks at long-term effects of cancer treatment such as premature ovarian insufficiency and early menopause. The symptoms of these can be significantly challenging to patients as they may be more severe than the symptoms of natural menopause. Brennan and colleagues give a comprehensive view of the current hormonal and non-hormonal therapy options studied and suggest a framework for more cost-effective and patient-focused models of care to meet the needs of a growing population of cancer survivors.
Brennan’s group at SBI focuses on precision medicine solutions for ovarian cancer and cancer genomics. Brennan also works on examining the underlying molecular mechanisms of obesity induced carcinogenesis with other active research groups in UCD and St. Vincent’s University Hospital, Dublin. He also leads the Women’s Health Initiative project at the Mater Hospital, funded by the Irish Cancer Society, which focuses on the development of evidence-based survivorship services for women living with and after cancer and leads a number of clinical trials in the area of menopause and cancer. In 2023, he was appointed National Clinical Lead for Cancer Research in Ireland.
Further information:
Systems Biology Ireland (SBI) at University College Dublin investigates new therapeutic approaches to disease, with a focus on cancer at a systems level. Researchers in SBI use a combination of traditional “wet” lab and computational modeling approaches to understand cellular signaling networks. SBI has a staff of ~60 group leaders, researchers, students and administrators from all over the world. http://www.ucd.ie/sbi
Precision Oncology Ireland (POI) is a consortium of 5 Irish Universities, 6 Irish Charities, and 7 industry partners aiming to develop new diagnostics and therapeutics for personalised cancer treatment. Officially launched in November 2019, the consortium is part-funded by Science Foundation Ireland under their Strategic Partnership Programme, and is co-ordinated by Systems Biology Ireland.
For more information, please contact Maryann Kelly, Senior Executive Assistant, Administration and Communication, Systems Biology Ireland at 083 061 2997 or maryann.kelly@ucd.ie.
The paper, “Managing Menopause After Cancer,” has been published in The Lancet as part of a special series on Menopause: https://www.thelancet.com/series/menopause-2024