Hello, friends, not sure if this was posted yet, but thought it bears
repeating...love, Joicy
Tamoxifen Lowers Risk Of Invasive Breast Cancer
[06/11/99; Doctor's Guide]
LONDON, ENGLAND -- June 11, 1999 -- The introduction of mammography
(breast screening) enabled better diagnosis of ductal carcinoma
in situ (DCIS), a non-invasive cancer of the breast. Invasive
cancer can develop in women who have DCIS and until the mid-1980s
DCIS was treated frequently by mastectomy. Management, however,
was changed after the publication of a study that showed lumpectomy
plus radiation therapy to be similarly effective to mastectomy.
Professor Bernard Fisher and colleagues from Canada and the United
States investigated whether treatment with lumpectomy and radiation
therapy could be improved further by the addition of the drug
Nolvadex (tamoxifen) to help to prevent invasive disease and
they report their findings in this week's issue of The Lancet.
In the study, 1,804 women with DCIS were randomly assigned lumpectomy
and radiation therapy, 902 women were assigned to five years
of treatment with daily tamoxifen (20 mg) and 902 women assigned
a placebo (an agent that has no effect). The investigators measured
rates of all breast cancer events for five years, as well as
the probability of developing invasive cancer in the same (ipsilateral)
breast or the opposite (contralateral) breast.
After five years, there were fewer invasive breast-cancer events
in the tamoxifen group than in the placebo group in the ipsilateral
and contralateral breast and at distant and regional sites.
"The combination of lumpectomy, radiation therapy and tamoxifen
was effective in the prevention of invasive cancer," the authors
write.
The full article can be found at:
http://www.pslgroup.com/dg/106b3e.htm
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