To print: Select File and then Print from your browser's menu --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Title: Tamoxifen Lowers Risk Of Invasive Breast Cancer URL: http://www.pslgroup.com/dg/106B3E.htm Doctor's Guide June 11, 1999
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. Related Link: tamoxifen --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright © 1999 P\S\L Consulting Group Inc. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of P\S\L content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of P\S\L. P\S\L shall not be liable for any errors, omissions or delays in this content or any other content on its sites, newsletters or other publications, nor for any decisions or actions taken in reliance on such content. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This news story was printed from *Doctor's Guide to the Internet* located at http://www.docguide.com --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Return to News Story Page This site is maintained by webmaster@pslgroup.com Please contact us with any comments, problems or bugs. All contents Copyright (c) 1998 P\S\L Consulting Group Inc. All rights reserved.