Drug cuts cancer risks for healthy women

The National Cancer Institute, a federal agency that coordinates the nation's cancer programs, said its six-year study was the first ever to show that a drug can reduce the incidence of breast cancer.

The study showed that the drug tamoxifen cut cancer rates by nearly half among women who were considered at risk of getting the disease.

The institute recently mailed letters announcing the breakthrough to the 13,000 women in the United States and Canada who participated in the study, the newspaper reported.

"This is now the first study in the world to show that a drug can reduce the incidence of breast cancer," the letter stated.

The results of the study - one of the largest cancer prevention trials ever undertaken - are to be made public Wednesday. Researchers would not discuss the results with the newspaper.

"I'm just thrilled. Wow!" Patricia Lorah of Reading, told the Inquirer on Saturday after getting her letter. "My mother and grandmother died of breast cancer. This is almost overwhelming."

Women at risk of getting the disease because of family history, precancerous breast lesions or age were randomly assigned to five years on either a placebo pill or tamoxifen.

The drug, made by Wilmington, Del.-based Zeneca Pharmaceuticals, is widely used to prevent the spread or return of breast cancer.

According to the institute, the drug reduced the rate of expected breast cancers from 1 in 130 women to 1 in 236 during the study, the Inquirer reported.

But tamoxifen also has been linked to increased risks for cancer in the uterine lining and for blood clots in the lungs.

Those risks prompted The National Women's Health Network in Washington to criticize the study.

"If this turns out to be a good risk-benefit ratio for some women, that will be good news," said Cindy Pearson, executive director of the National Women's Health Network.

But it's "imperative for researchers to tell women what ... they know about the cost of this benefit. Did any women die of anything caused by tamoxifen?"

Tamoxifen slips into estrogen receptors of breast cancer cells and locks up the cells, preventing them from growing and dividing.

In 1994, the trial was temporarily suspended during congressional hearings into four uterine cancer deaths in another study of breast cancer treatment using tamoxifen. University of Pittsburgh surgeon Bernard Fisher, coordinator of the prevention trial, also was investigated for reports that he was slow to address research problems.

04-06-98