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Tamoxifen ‘long-term breast cancer prevention’
The hormone drug tamoxifen offers long-term benefits for breast cancer prevention among women at high risk of the disease, latest research suggests.
The results of two recent clinical trials published in the latest Journal of the National Cancer Institute found that breast cancer risk reduction persists long after women stop taking tamoxifen.
Tamoxifen, an anti-oestrogen drug, is used both to treat breast cancer and to prevent it among women at high risk of breast cancer. However, there is little information about breast cancer risk after tamoxifen use is stopped.
The studies found that tamoxifen reduced the incidence of breast cancer by 32 percent, all in oestrogen receptor (ER)-positive breast cancer, which tamoxifen is active on.
And, breast cancer rates in women about 8 years later were still reduced by about 27 per cent, according to Dr Jack Cuzick of the Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine in London. This reduction was again restricted to ER-positive breast cancers.
Side effects decreased after active treatment was stopped. For example, during the tamoxifen treatment, women experienced higher rates of deep-vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolism, but this difference disappeared after tamoxifen was stopped.
Researchers said that the results provided evidence that the benefits of tamoxifen extend beyond the active treatment period, while the side effects largely do not.
Since both trials find that tamoxifen reduced the risk of only ER-positive cancers, it’s important to identify specific risk factors for these cancers so tamoxifen use can be appropriately guided.
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