Dr Caoimhe Hartley

So, I mean, I'm very carefully picking my words because I do think oncology, they're amazing what they do.

But I think sometimes the other symptoms that are maybe not cancer related, but might be related to their treatment or related to the fact that they're now in menopause because of their treatment, there's just a sort of, well, we don't really know what to do with that.

And also...

I know, it is.

It's just... And they are happy to be alive, but also they still have to live.

Of course, yeah.

So they're challenging, but they're actually patients that I love seeing in the rotunda because I do feel there's lots that we can do and it's not perfect and we don't, you know, I can't flick a switch for everybody and make all their symptoms go away, but so much of it is about having really good support and good advice and

And having somewhere for them to even just go and have a dedicated space to talk about those symptoms at all is therapeutic.

You're right about the vaginal oestrogen.

That's a kind of pretty much a green light.

Now, like you said, I think it's case by case.

You have to discuss it.

But we're really confident that that really isn't systemic.

It's not in your system.

And also your vagina doesn't adapt over.

It's not like your brain.

So I think if you're symptomatic, you're symptomatic forever.

And we do have some data to support that.

We do have some research, mostly observational, but we do have data that would kind of support how safe it is post breast cancer diagnosis.

So that's kind of nice to be able to tell women that.