Managing Menopausal Symptoms in Breast Cancer Survivors: Experience from an Australian Clinic

Women's health clinicians are often called on to address quality-of-life issues in breast cancer survivors. The authors describe a clinic in Australia — staffed by a gynecologist, a family physician who specializes in menopause, and a clinical nurse specialist — that serves breast cancer survivors with severe menopausal symptoms and premenopausal women scheduled for risk-reducing salpingo-oophorectomy. From 2003 through 2008, 578 breast cancer survivors were seen. The most common complaints were vasomotor symptoms, attenuated sexual desire, difficulty sleeping, and fatigue. More than half of patients reported “extreme” concerns related to at least one of these symptoms.

Medications were administered in 55% of patients: Most commonly, they we…