(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- The drug tamoxifen is known to help protect high
risk women from developing estrogen receptor (ER) positive breast cancer -- a
finding that makes sense, since the drug blocks estrogen in a woman’s body.
However, it could it also play a role in ER negative breast cancer. Researchers
who re-analyzed data from an earlier study found women who received the drug and
then were diagnosed with ER negative cancers were diagnosed about a year earlier
than women who took a placebo.
Overall, women with ER negative breast cancer who took tamoxifen were diagnosed
at 24 months. Women who didn’t take the drug were diagnosed at 36 months.
Since many studies have shown cancer is more effectively treated when caught
early, the investigators believe their findings will give doctors something new
to consider when trying to prevent breast cancer. “Based on our basic
understanding of breast cancer, survival rate is higher when cancer is detected
at an earlier stage,” study author Yu Shen, Ph.D., a professor in The University
of Texas M. D. Anderson department of biostatistics was quoted as saying. “Our
findings open up a new area of research.”
How does tamoxifen help in the earlier detection of ER negative cancers? The
study wasn’t designed to answer that question, but one explanation might be that
by blocking estrogen, which is associated with denser breasts, it indirectly
improves the ability of mammography to detect the disease. In the study,
mammography found about 77 percent of the ER negative cancers in the placebo
group, but it located nearly 95 percent in the tamoxifen group.
SOURCE: Journal of the National Cancer Institute, published online October 7,
2008
