Cancer Therapy Center

Medpage has an article noting that breast cancer clinicians seem to be fine tuning their art, with a major decline in morality when using radiotherapy, chemotherapy, and Tamoxifen, an analysis of clinical trial evidence has shown.

The five-year update by the Early Breast Cancer Trialists’ Collaborative Group (EBCTCG), presented at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium here by epidemiologist Richard Peto, Ph.D., of the University of Oxford in England, held no surprises but confirmed that radiotherapy, chemotherapy combinations, and tamoxifen were steadily reducing disease mortality. 

 

Overall, said Dr. Peto, breast cancer mortality rates have been dropping worldwide since the late 1980s, likely because of effective treatments, early diagnosis by mammography, better adjuvant treatment, and better treatment for relapse.

While each individual treatment has only moderate success against breast cancer, the treatments combine to be increasingly effective.

A warning is being recommended for certain post-menopausal women who use the drug tamoxifen to treat breast cancer. A federal health advisory panel says women carrying a variant of a certain gene face a greater risk of the cancer recurring when using Tamoxifen, and has recommended that its label be changed to warn patients and urge genetic testing.

The drug, which has been on the market for nearly 30 years, is used to treat beast cancer and as a preventative drug for women at risk. It was not immediately clear whether preventative usage in patients carrying the suspect gene would increase the likelihood of cancer occurrence.