Raloxifene and breast cancer. There has been a great deal of press interest recently in whether the osteoporosis drug Raloxifene can have an impact on the outcome for breast cancer patients. But what's the evidence? Does this drug reduce the risk of invasive breast cancer?
The Italian study switched women taking the tamoxifen therapy to the aromatase inhibitor 2 to 3 years into the normal 5 year regiment. According to the results, there was improved performance of the aromatase inhibitors. This means that not only is it more efficient at fighting cancer, it will also allow users to avoid the adverse side affects such as endometrial cancer and strokes created by the other medication
Dr. Steven Galson, director of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research said, ?Today's approval is a step forward in making new treatments available for patients who have progression of their breast cancer after treatment with some of the most effective breast cancer therapies available. New targeted therapies such as Tykerb are helping expand options for patients.?
According the HealthDay News, Tamoxifen has been in widespread use among breast cancer survivors for the last two decades. The drug is typically taken after surgery, because it targets the hormone estrogen, which can promote tumor cell growth in women with estrogen-sensitive breast cancer. A standard five-year treatment of tamoxifen has been found to reduce breast cancer death rates by as much as 31 percent.
Cancer experts are encouraged by the results but warn that this trial was conducted in a particular group of postmenopausal women with heart disease and that therefore the results may not necessarily be applicable to other women - and further research will be needed to confirm the findings. Some commentators have also raised worries that this study was primarily designed to investigate the effects of raloxifene in reducing the risk of heart disease - which it didn't do. They fear that the number of women in the trial might not have been big enough to properly assess breast cancer risks.
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