[MOL] Tamoxifen Monitoring Found Wanting

[Joicy <joicy@erols.com>]

This article makes me a little nervous, because it conflicts with other
research I've seen about the %s on Tamoxifen causing endometrial cancer. I
am always afraid that these kinds of "studies" will make it hard to get the
tests needed to catch these cancers...Love and prayers, Joicy


Tamoxifen Monitoring Found Wanting
    [10/15/2000; HealthSCOUT]

HealthScout Reporter FRIDAY, Oct. 13 (HealthScout) -- The
periodic biopsies and ultrasound examinations being done
to detect early signs of endometrial cancer in women taking the
anticancer drug tamoxifen aren't necessary, research groups in
the United States and Germany report. That is potentially good
news for the estimated 500,000 American women taking tamoxifen,
which is prescribed primarily to prevent recurrence of breast
cancer after a lumpectomy or mastectomy, and is also given as
a preventive measure in women at high risk of the malignancy. Tamoxifen
is highly effective at preventing breast cancer -- so effective
that some 80,000 American women will begin the recommended five-year
course of the drug this year. But some women are reluctant to
take tamoxifen because it increases the risk of endometrial cancer
-- cancer of the lining of the uterus -- slightly. "We know that
the risk is very low, two per 1,000 women per year," says Dr.
Richard Barakat, associate chief of the gynecology service at
Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. But because
the threat is so worrisome, many physicians prescribing the drug
do either periodic biopsies, in which a small tissue sample is
taken from the uterus, or ultrasound examinations to detect the
earliest signs of endometrial cancer.

The full article can be found at:

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/hsn/20001014/hl/tamoxifen_monitoring_found_want
ing_1.html

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