Continuing tamoxifen for 10 years reduces the chances of dying from breast cancer.
Taking the drug tamoxifen for ten years after breast cancer surgery, rather than the usual five, further reduces the chances of dying from breast cancer. The findings - for women with oestrogen receptor positive (ER-positive) breast cancer - come from the long-running ATLAS trial led by Oxford University's Clinical Trial Service Unit (CTSU). A majority of breast cancers are ER-positive and the results will help guide future treatment recommendations for women with this type of cancer. The results are published online in the medical journal The Lancet , timed to coincide with a major presentation at the 2012 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium. 'Five years of adjuvant tamoxifen is already an excellent treatment that substantially reduces the 15-year risk for recurrence and death from ER-positive breast cancer, but ATLAS now shows that 10 years of tamoxifen is even more effective,' says Christina Davies of Oxford University, the principal investigator of the study. ER-positive breast cancer is driven by the female sex hormone oestrogen, and tamoxifen blocks the hormone's effect. The drug is widely used for treating ER-positive breast cancer, and is usually given daily for five years after the cancer has been removed surgically.
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