Published 1 September 2009, doi:10.1136/bmj.b3538
Cite this as: BMJ 2009;339:b3538

News

American Cancer Society calls for more balance in reporting of tamoxifen risk study

Janice Hopkins Tanne

1 New York

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

The American Cancer Society has said that tamoxifen prevents far more second breast cancers and deaths than it causes. The society was responding to media headlines triggered by a US study showing a rise in numbers of oestrogen receptor negative breast cancers in the contralateral breast in women who had been taking tamoxifen for five years or longer.

The study, conducted by the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle, Washington, reported that women who took tamoxifen for more than five years after treatment for primary oestrogen receptor positive breast cancer had a fourfold higher risk of oestrogen receptor negative breast cancer, which is more difficult to treat, in the opposite breast (Cancer Research 2009;69:6865-70, doi:10.1158/0008-5472.CAN-09-1355).

The observational study looked at 367 women who had been given a diagnosis of both a first primary oestrogen receptor positive invasive breast cancer and a second primary breast cancer in the . . . [Full text of this article]


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