AsianScientist (Dec. 18, 2013) – Researchers have found a drug that is effective in preventing breast cancer, according to an international research team whose work was published in The Lancet.
Winthrop Professor Christobel Saunders, from The University of Western Australia’s School of Surgery, is one of the chief investigators in a study, which found that the drug anastrozole is effective in preventing breast cancers, with the added benefit that it has few side effects.
More than 3,800 postmenopausal women with a family history of breast cancer joined the pioneering International Breast Cancer Intervention Study (IBIS-II). IBIS-II Principal Investigator Professor Saunders said that the study had the potential to benefit future generations of women.
“The findings from this research may provide a new approach to prevent breast cancer, not only for women today, but also for their daughters and granddaughters in the future,” said Saunders.
In the study, around 1,900 women were randomly assigned to receive anastrozole and around the same number were given a placebo. The women’s average age was 59 and 47 percent of them had used hormone replacement therapy before the trial. The researchers found that anastrozole was useful in preventing both invasive and ductal carcinoma in situ breast cancers.
The article can be found at: Cuzick J et al. (2013) Anastrozole for prevention of breast cancer in high-risk postmenopausal women (IBIS-II): an international, double-blind, randomised placebo-controlled trial.
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Source: University of Western Australia; Photo: williami5/Flickr/CC.
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