The Role of Omega-3 Fatty Acids in Breast Cancer Treatment Process

Background: Nowadays, breast cancer is becoming an important health concern in women population in both developed and developing countries. Cancer developing, particularly breast cancer, imposes great deals of treating expenses beside the lowering life quality of both women and their family and the high mortality rate. Therefore, attempt to reduce the pathogenesis load and accelerate treatment process have a considerable importance.Methods: The present study conducted with the objective of investigating the effect of receiving omega-3 (n-3FAs) supplement on breast cancer treatment by searching in scientific sources and papers in authentic journals and databases such as scholar.google.com, pubmed.com, sciencedirect.com and Iranian website including sid.ir. Papers published between 1995 and 2015 were collected and reviewed.Results: Some studies have indicated that n-3FAs have healthy effects including cachexia reduction, inflammation decrement, potentiate the chemo preventive effect of the antiestrogen (AE) Tamoxifen, quality of life improvement and efficacious improvement of other approaches of treatment. Furthermore, it has been shown that supplementation with n-3FAs generally elevate the longevity of patients with breast cancer. However, the results in this area are controversial and the effect of these fatty acids on diminution of risk of breast cancer developing has not been completely proved. Moreover, some studies strongly suggest that prescribing not only n-3FAs, but also other supplements and using the method of treatment including chemotherapy, radiotherapy and surgery such as mastectomy should be based on the genotype of the patient. Hence, gene polymorphism in breast cancer patients who carry different gens should be taken into consideration. Conclusion: It seems that n-3FAs could be administered in the treatment process of breast cancers and receiving it, may lead to facilitating healing the disease and observing some positive outcomes. Nonetheless, using these supplements in breast cancer treatment protocol is an area for discus and controversy. Therefore, recommendation of n-3FAs administration needs further studies.

کلیدواژه ها:

Omega-3 ، Docosa Hexanoeic Acid ، Eicosa Pantaenoc Acid ، Breast Cancer