Free Republic

CHICAGO — A drug now used to prevent recurrences of breast cancer can also reduce the risk of it occurring in the first place, providing a new option for women at high risk of getting the disease, researchers reported here on Saturday. Two drugs, tamoxifen and raloxifene, are already approved to prevent breast cancer but both are rarely used for that purpose, in part because they can have serious side effects like blood clots. The researchers said the new option, exemestane, does not have those side effects and might be more acceptable. “There’s a very safe therapy that looks highly...

A hormone therapy for breast cancer can reduce the chances of deadly spread of the disease by nearly a fifth, according to new trial findings. Women given the aromatase inhibitor exemestane after surgery were 19% less likely to suffer metastatic, or spreading, cancer than those receiving standard treatment. Cancer is most deadly when it travels around the body, affecting vital organs such as the brain or liver. Each year more than 45,600 new cases of breast cancer are diagnosed in the UK and the disease kills around 12,300 women. Exemestane, marketed as Aromasin, works by shutting off production of the...

WHAT if there was growing evidence that an already-existing drug, taken daily, might dramatically reduce the risk of breast cancer? Shouldn't that be more newsworthy than fund-raising walkathons done in the quixotic pursuit of a simple cure? More noteworthy than the latest lab test which classifies an environmental chemical as a rodent carcinogen? U.S. scientists, led by Harvard's Dr. Peter Goss, this week began recruiting women at high risk of breast cancer to participate in a study of what may well be just such a drug. That "chemical prevention" of cancer has come so far will be a shock to...

Drugs that completely block estrogen can lower the risk of breast cancer recurrence in postmenopausal women after surgery, according to the latest study to suggest that some women can improve their chances of recovering from breast cancer with aromatase inhibitors. The study followed more than 4,700 women who took tamoxifen, the most common treatment for preventing recurrences of breast cancer. But women who switched to the estrogen-blocker exemestane two and a half years later cut their chances of developing another tumor by a third. Taking exemestane, which is sold under the brand name aromasin by Pfizer, also provided better protection...