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Beyond the Pink: Breast Cancer Survivorship, Sexual Health, and Thriving After Treatment | Dr. Eleonora Teplinsky
Description
We talk a lot about screening and treatment in the breast cancer space. What we do not talk about nearly enough is what happens after. What happens to a woman's fertility, her vagina, her relationships, her body image, her mental health, her cardiovascular health, and her sense of self when treatment ends and everyone expects her to simply be grateful to be alive.
Dr. Eleonora Teplinsky is a board certified medical oncologist specializing in breast and gynecologic cancers, head of breast and gynecologic medical oncology at Valley Health System, and author of the new book Beyond the Pink: Navigating Life, Health, and Breast Cancer. Her work has long focused on young women with cancer, sexual health, and survivorship. And this book is her answer to a question medicine has not been asking loudly enough: how do we help women not just survive but thrive?
We cover a lot of ground. Hormone therapy after breast cancer, including the nuanced conversations around hormone receptor positive versus negative disease, vaginal estrogen, testosterone, and Duavee. Bone health, body composition, sarcopenia, and the emerging data on GLP-1 medications and breast cancer recurrence risk. The difference between a local and distant recurrence and what ongoing screening actually looks like years after treatment.
We also discuss the racial disparities in breast cancer care that begin with clinical trial enrollment and run all the way through treatment decisions, drug access, and who gets believed when they report pain. The medical distrust that Black women carry into the oncology office for very good reason. And what it means to practice truly patient centered care when the healthcare system was not designed to make that easy.
Survivorship does not begin when treatment ends. It begins at diagnosis. And you are more than your breast cancer.
Highlights:
- Vaginal estrogen is safe for the vast majority of breast cancer survivors, including those on aromatase inhibitors.
- Testosterone may actually act as a tumor suppressor in hormone receptor positive breast cancer.
- GLP-1 medications show early signals toward lower breast cancer recurrence risk.
- Black women are underrepresented in clinical trials and undertreated in guideline-based therapies.
- Survivorship care starts at diagnosis, not when treatment ends.
- Bone density should be checked right after chemotherapy; weight-bearing exercise, calcium, vitamin D, and body composition monitoring are all part of survivorship care.
- Black women are underrepresented in clinical trials, undertreated in guideline-based therapies, and underbelieved when reporting symptoms; medical racism in breast cancer care is real and documented.
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