American Cancer Society Responds to International Tamoxifen Treatment Trials

American Cancer Society
Thursday, 14 May 1998

The American Cancer Society responded today to new findings from an international overview of tamoxifen treatment trials that will be published in the May 15, 1998 issue of the British medical journal The Lancet. The overview analyzes a 15-year follow up of 30,000 estrogen receptor positive early breast cancer patients. Within 10 years of surgery about one-third of the women had a recurrence of breast cancer. However, in the part of the group receiving tamoxifen for 5 years, the recurrence rate, irrespective of their age or menopausal status, was 50% lower.

Dr. Richard Peto of Oxford University, principle author of the analysis, says that starting tamoxifen immediately after surgery prevented one in six women from relapsing and one in twelve from dying.

Harmon Eyre, MD, executive vice president for Research and Cancer Control for the American Cancer Society, stated the following about the study:

"This overview of international tamoxifen treatment trials clearly confirms the ability to increase the number of lives saved when appropriate therapy is given for primary breast cancer. The study offers very compelling confirming evidence that tamoxifen does not just delay recurrence of breast cancer in a patient; it can also prevent it from occurring in the other breast, and this benefit persists even after the standard 5-year tamoxifen treatment is ended."

For more information, or to contact American Cancer Society, see their website at: www.cancer.org