A recent study throws light on the risk of increasing breast cancer amongst girls. It states that daughters of women who after the age of 40 took DES (diethylstilbestrol), if doctors thought they were at risk of miscarrying and sometimes also for morning sickness, are prone to the impending danger. DSE is a synthetic oestrogen, a female hormone responsible for pregnancy and growth of some tumors. The American scientists who carried out the research said the "DES daughters" should think twice before using hormone replacement therapy that would boost their oestrogen levels again. Julie Palmer, a professor of epidemiology at the Boston University is of the view that because of prenatal expose to DSE may indicate the approaching ‘age at which breast cancer becomes more common’. Initially, it came into light that one in every 1,000 girls born to women who had taken it was likely to develop a particular vaginal cancer. Later it was speculated that women who had taken it are prone to breast cancer. Now the drug is proscribed except for prostate cancer.
