Can hot flashes and night sweats be controlled in women having treatment for breast cancer? Elizabeth Tracey reports

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Hot flashes and night sweats are called vasomotor symptoms, and they’re experienced by many women approaching menopause and those being treated for certain breast cancers. Now a new class of drugs has been developed to help. William Nelson, director of the Kimmel Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins, says they regulate hormone production in the brain.

Nelson: They also lower estradiol levels, lower the pituitary stimulant to make estrogens in the body so they would seem to be a safer approach to use to aid with breast cancer treatment. It won't interfere with the treatment. They did a clinical trial of elinzanetant. It's orally available. They had 474 women undergoing some sort of endocrine therapy for breast cancer symptoms, began to decrease within four week mile post they had a decrease in vasomotor symptoms in half the people who got the active drug.     :31

Drugs working by the same route are in development, Nelson says. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.