June 6th, 2011

The Seattle Times reports:

A drug now used to prevent recurrence of breast cancer can also reduce the risk of it occurring by 65 percent, providing a new option for millions of postmenopausal women at high risk of getting the disease, researchers reported Saturday.

Two drugs, tamoxifen and raloxifene, are already approved to prevent breast cancer but are rarely used for that purpose, in part because they can have serious side effects such as uterine cancer and blood clots.

The researchers said the new option, exemestane sold under the brand name Aromasin, does not have those side effects and might be more acceptable.

“There’s a very safe therapy that looks highly effective in preventing breast cancer,” Dr. Paul Goss, professor of medicine at Harvard University and Massachusetts General Hospital, said at a news conference at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology in Chicago.

He was the lead investigator in the study, presented at the conference Saturday and published online by The New England Journal of Medicine.

Exemestane is one of a class of compounds known as aromatase inhibitors. These drugs stop the production of estrogen, which fuels tumor growth. They have proved superior to tamoxifen in preventing recurrence of cancer after a breast tumor is surgically removed.

Many studies have shown that estrogen produced by the body promotes some breast tumors. Tamoxifen and raloxifene are so-called anti-estrogens that bind to receptors on the surface of breast-tissue cells, preventing estrogen from binding. Exemestane, manufactured by Pfizer, and other aromatase inhibitors block production of estrogen.

Read the rest of the story at The Seattle Times