Drug prolongs lives of patients with hormone-sensitive breast cancer
Women with hormone-sensitive breast cancer who take the drug tamoxifen for five years after breast cancer surgery can cut their long-term chances of dying from the disease by at least a third, according to a report by the Early Breast Cancer Trialists' Collaborative Group (EBCTCG).
Hormone-blocking drugs such as tamoxifen are often given to patients who have undergone breast cancer surgery in order to target any cancer cells that may have been missed and prevent the disease from returning.
The researchers collected the findings from 20 clinical trials involving patients with early breast cancer taking tamoxifen every day for five years, and compared them with breast cancer patients who were not prescribed the drug.
Read the whole article at Cancer Research UK
Reference
- Early Breast Cancer Trialists' Collaborative Group (EBCTCG) (2011). Relevance of breast cancer hormone receptors and other factors to the efficacy of adjuvant tamoxifen: patient-level meta-analysis of randomised trials The Lancet DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(11)60993-8
Keywords: oestrogen receptor positive breast cancer, tamoxifen, survival
29. 7. 2011 Cancer Research UK
