Women whose tumors were supplied by estrogen can now take the drug tamoxifen after surgery, radiation and chemotherapy. Tamoxifen supports only for five years but after five years, it may be unsafe.
Researchers stopped a large study five years ago when women with early-stage cancer who took aromatase inhibitor, after taking tamoxifen were about half as likely to experience a relapse.
Paul Goss of Massachusetts General Hospital and his colleagues studied 1,500 women who had been taking placebo but started taking the aromatase inhibitor letrozole after the study was stopped. It had been up to seven years for some since they had stopped taking tamoxifen.
The risk of recurrence was cut by 63 percent as compared to 800 women who did not take the letrozole and the risk of spreading cancer was lessened by 61 percent. The chance of finding a tumor in the other breast has dropped down to more than 80 percent.
Letrozole, trade name Femara, is an oral non-steroidal aromatase inhibitor that has been introduced for the adjuvant treatment of hormonally-responsive breast cancer. It is approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of local or metastatic breast cancer that is hormone receptor positive or has an unknown receptor status in postmenopausal women.
Another study with 1,598 patients revealed that a different aromatase inhibitor known as exemestane (brand name: Aromasin) was equally effective in reducing the risk of breast cancer recurrence.
