Breast cancer drugs should be offered to healthy but high risk women, US panel concludes

Physicians should offer to prescribe tamoxifen or raloxifene to women who are at a raised risk of breast cancer and have a low risk for the adverse side effects associated with these drugs, say draft recommendations drawn up by a US Preventive Services Task Force panel and released for public comment Tuesday.

The panel’s recommendations apply to asymptomatic women between the ages of 40 and 70 years without a prior diagnosis of breast cancer, ductal carcinoma in situ, or lobular carcinoma in situ.

The panel’s conclusion, which …