Word: tamoxifen
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...team surveyed 129 high-risk women about the drug Tamoxifen, the first and only drug approved by the FDA to inhibit breast cancer...
Breast cancer grows so slowly in an older woman, say doctors, that she can skip the radiation therapy most women endure after surgery. In two studies in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers followed breast-cancer survivors whose small tumors had been treated with lumpectomy and tamoxifen--with or without radiation. In nearly 8% of women ages 50 and older, cancer came back in the same breast without radiation; with treatment, the relapse rate was less than 1%. In women ages 70 and up, only 4% relapsed without radiation, compared with 1% who had had treatment...
...group of drugs called aromatase inhibitors that were once used to treat metastatic breast cancer is helpful in less advanced cases as well. They target tumors that need estrogen by lowering the amount of estrogen in the body. Women who took aromatase inhibitors for five years after taking tamoxifen (which also shrinks estrogen-sensitive tumors) reduced their risk of recurrence by almost half...
Each year about 212,000 women in the U.S. are found to have breast cancer; half of them are postmenopausal and have tumors studded with receptors for estrogen or progesterone. These growths are perfect targets for tamoxifen and letrozole, which block estrogen's tumor-enhancing effects, albeit through two different mechanisms. "Estrogen is like the fuel that runs a car engine," says Dr. James Ingle, who headed the U.S. portion of the trial at the Mayo Clinic. "If you remove the fuel, the engine quits running...
...shortened trial did leave some questions unanswered. No one can say how long women should remain on letrozole. And while bone thinning is a known side effect, other long-term effects are unclear. Still, for those who have graduated from tamoxifen, there is finally something better than just hoping for good luck...