Breast cancer and sense of smell.About half of all breast cancers are estrogen-receptor positive, meaning the tumor cells require estrogen to grow. Women with estrogen-positive (ER+) breast cancers have a slight but statistically significant loss of their sense of smell, according to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. a report in the Aug. 10 LANCET from the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine in New York City New York City: see New York, city. New York City City (pop., 2000: 8,008,278), southeastern New York, at the mouth of the Hudson River. The largest city in the U.S. . Steven Lehrer and his colleagues looked at 25 women with ER+ breast cancers, 21 women with estrogen-receptor negative (ER-) cancers and 46 cancer-free women matched with these two groups for age, sex, race and smoking habits. Four ER+ women and five ER- women had received chemotherapy; none had received radiation treatments to the head. The ER+ women scored significantly lower than the ER- and control groups on a sophisticated and sensitive scratch-and-sniff test. The difference didn't represent functional impairmant, and, says Lehrer, "the women didn't seem to notice." The biological connection between ER+ breast cancer and sense of smell may lie in the pineal gland pineal gland (pĭn`eəl), small organ (about the size of a pea) situated in the brain. Long considered vestigial in humans, the structure, which is also called the pineal body or the epiphysis, is present in most vertebrates. , a small organ in the brain that secrets the hormone melatonin melatonin: see pineal gland. melatonin Hormone secreted by the pineal gland of most vertebrates. It appears to be important in regulating sleeping cycles; more is produced at night, and test subjects injected with it become sleepy. in response to day length. In rats, removing the pineal gland or inhibiting melatonin can induce mammary tumors; the nightly melatonin peak in women with ER+ breast cancer is lower than in other women. "Perhaps," the researchers suggest, "both the pineal pineal /pin·e·al/ (pin´e-il) 1. pertaining to the pineal body. 2. shaped like a pine cone. pin·e·al adj. 1. Having the form of a pine cone. 2. and olfactory olfactory /ol·fac·to·ry/ (ol-fak´ter-e) pertaining to the sense of smell. ol·fac·to·ry adj. Of, relating to, or contributing to the sense of smell. abnormalities observed in women with ER+ breast cancer result from a single underlying defect." What it means in terms of treatment "is difficult to say," notes Lehrer. Perhaps, he speculates, a sense-of-smell test may prove a good screen. |
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