Cancer drug 'cuts long term risk' of disease
Almost 44,100 cases of breast cancer are diagnosed in the UK each year
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Wednesday, 21, Feb 2007 01:27
Women at an increased risk of breast cancer could reduce their chance of contracting the disease by taking the drug tamoxifen, scientists have claimed.
The drug was also found to have a protective effect for several years once treatment had stopped and the risk of side-effects reduced.
Lead researcher Professor Jack Cuzick from the Cancer Research UK Centre for Epidemiology, Mathematics and Statistics has described his study's findings as a "major step" towards managing risk and preventing breast cancer from occurring.
In the study, 7,154 pre and post-menopausal women in seven countries with an increased risk of breast cancer were given either 20mg of tamoxifen or a placebo (dummy pill) every day for five years.
After an average follow-up of eight years 142 breast cancers were diagnosed in women in the tamoxifen group and 195 in the placebo group.
"These [results] confirm that tamoxifen continues to help prevent oestrogen receptor positive breast cancer in women at an increased risk of the disease for at least five years after treatment has stopped," said Professor Cuzick.
"Additionally we found that almost all of the excess side-effects reported on tamoxifen do not continue after treatment stops."
Side-effects include blood clots and endometrial cancer.
Kate Law, director of clinical trials at Cancer Research UK, said that the study's results were "promising".
"They are important in furthering our knowledge of the role of tamoxifen in the prevention of the disease and also raising the possibility of making it available on a wider scale," she said.
Responding to the study, Dr Sarah Cant, Breakthrough Breast Cancer senior policy and information officer, said: "We know from talking to women at high risk of developing breast cancer that they want to do all they can to reduce their chance of developing this disease and increasing the preventative options available would be extremely welcome.
"However, there are risks and benefits to all preventative treatment options and tamoxifen is not currently licensed for this use in the UK."
Research will now be carried out to investigate drugs which could be more effective at preventing breast cancer and have less side effects than tamoxifen.
"We hope to provide women with as many options as possible in protecting themselves against the disease," Cancer Research UK's Ms Law added.
The study is published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.