Tamoxifen Pill Not
Cost Effective For Most High Risk Breast Cancer Patients - Extends Life
For Women With 3% Chance Who Take Drug
July 23rd 2006
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Tamoxifen Binds
To Estrogen Receptor |
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Researchers in the U.S. and Canada say that most women, even when they
are at a very high risk for breast cancer, can not increase their life
expectancy by taking the cancer drug tamoxifen. Tamoxifen was approved
by the Food and Drug Administration in 1998 for breast cancer prevention
in women who have at least a 1.67-percent chance of developing the
disease over the next five years.
The prevention strategy is expensive, according to the researchers. It
costs $1.3 million per year for each life saved. Joy Melnikow said, "We
found that for women at the lower end of the high-risk range for
developing breast cancer, there is a very small likelihood that taking
tamoxifen will reduce mortality. This would support revising the
current recommended risk threshold for physicians to counsel women about
tamoxifen." Joy is the lead author of the study and professor of family
and community medicine at UC Davis School of Medicine and Medical
Center.
It has been shown that tamoxifen can reduce the incidence of invasive
breast cancer among high-risk women by up to 49 percent. But there are
side effects, including cataracts requiring surgery, deep vein
thromboses, endometrial cancer and stroke.
If a patient that uses tamoxifen for prevention does develop breast
cancer, it is usually the estrogen receptor-negative tumor, which has a
worse prognosis. The researchers say that tamoxifen usually prevents
the estrogen receptor-positive cancer.
The team, which was made up of researchers from UC Davis, UC San
Francisco, the University of Pittsburgh and McMaster University in
Ontario, Canada, says that it can extend the life expectancy for women
with a 3 percent (or more) chance of developing breast cancer in the
next five years. This is especially true for women who “have not had a
hysterectomy, and therefore face the risk of endometrial cancer related
to tamoxifen use”.
The researchers were mostly looking at the cost effectiveness of taking
tamoxifen for prevention. They compared the risk to the annual flu shot
which costs about $980 per year of life saved for patients ages 65 and
older. A colonoscopy every 10 years costs about $11,000 per year of
life saved for people 50 and older and annual mammography costs about
$58,000 per year of life saved for women ages 40 to 80.
Marsha Quinn
Best Syndication
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