Dr. Jack Cuzick, head of the Cancer Research, the U.K.’s Center for Cancer Prevention, headed a new research team from Queen Mary University of London, which studied the drug called ‘anastrozole’ and a therapy which helped to prevent the reoccurrence of breast cancer in postmenopausal women.
Hence, with this study, women having a family history of breast cancer may soon get an improved and enhanced way to prevent breast cancer. However, what Dr. Jack Cuzick and his research team hoped to discover is, that the same therapy would help prevent breast cancer in women who show signs of developing breast cancer in the future.
The research team studied 3,800 women in 18 countries having a family background of breast cancer. As per the study, anastrozole can help in reducing the breast cancer occurrence by 53%.
“The biggest surprise of our study was that the side effects were less than expected,” Cuzick said. Anastrozole is not the only drug that can help to reduce the incidence of breast cancer among women. Drugs like tamoxifen and raloxifene are also used to curb breast cancer; however, these drugs have side effects like increased risk for blood clots, stroke and other types of cancer. Although, anastrozole is not free from side effects, it is less severe than other cancer drugs.
“We need to raise awareness that medications to prevent cancer exist. It is vastly underutilized in the world. This study further validates their safety – a major concern for most prescribers,” said Dr. Angel Rodriguez, a breast cancer doctor at Houston’s Methodist Cancer Center.
