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(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- The drug tamoxifen is known to help protect high risk women from developing estrogen receptor (ER) positive breast cancer -- a finding that makes sense, since the drug blocks estrogen in a womans body.
However, it could it also play a role in ER negative breast cancer. Researchers who re-analyzed data from an earlier study found women who received the drug and then were diagnosed with ER negative cancers were diagnosed about a year earlier than women who took a placebo.
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Overall, women with ER negative breast cancer who took tamoxifen were diagnosed at 24 months. Women who didnt take the drug were diagnosed at 36 months.
Since many studies have shown cancer is more effectively treated when caught early, the investigators believe their findings will give doctors something new to consider when trying to prevent breast cancer. Based on our basic understanding of breast cancer, survival rate is higher when cancer is detected at an earlier stage, study author Yu Shen, Ph.D., a professor in The University of Texas M. D. Anderson department of biostatistics was quoted as saying. Our findings open up a new area of research.
How does tamoxifen help in the earlier detection of ER negative cancers? The study wasnt designed to answer that question, but one explanation might be that by blocking estrogen, which is associated with denser breasts, it indirectly improves the ability of mammography to detect the disease. In the study, mammography found about 77 percent of the ER negative cancers in the placebo group, but it located nearly 95 percent in the tamoxifen group.
SOURCE: Journal of the National Cancer Institute, published online October 7, 2008
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