It's official: Femara beats tamoxifen in preventing breast-cancer recurrence. For anyone who has a sister or mother or female friend or colleague battling breast cancer, this is exciting news.
A large scale clinical study has shown that patients admininstered Femara showed a 27% reduction in the risk of distant recurrence (metastases) with Femara as compared with tamoxifen. Both of these drugs have been effective in treatment of Estrogen-receptor-positive tumors (tumors that grow in the presence of estrogen).
Femara is a potent member of a new class of drugs called aromatase inhibitors; these drugs almost totally shut down the body's ability to make estrogen. But each drug carries the risk of side effects: Women taking Femara had higher cholesterol and a higher incidence of heart trouble than women taking tamoxifen. (It's not clear whether this is due to a side effect of Femara or a possible protective effect of tamoxifen). But at least there are some more choices for women.
Sunday, January 15, 2006
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Breast Cancer recurrence
Common Breast Cancer Myths
The first myth pertaining to this disease is that it only affects women.
Second myth that is associated with this disease is that if one has found a lump during an examination, it is cancer.
Third is that it is solely hereditary
The next myth associated with breast cancer is downright ridiculous. Would you believe, that in this day and age, some individuals still think that breast cancer is contagious?
Conversely, some individuals foolishly believe that breast size determines whether or not one gets cancer.
Finally, another myth that is associated with this disease is that it only affects older people. This is not so. Although the chance of getting breast cancer increases with age, women as young as 18 have been diagnosed with the disease.
You can find a number of helpful informative articles on Breast Cancer recurrence at breast-cancer1.com
Breast Cancer recurrence
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