Studies of breast cancer treatment may be failing to assess the effects on younger women, experts have warned.
A new study has shown that women under the age of 40 respond very differently to older women to standard treatments.
Researchers said the findings may help explain why survival rates are poor among young women who contract the disease.
They now say it may be necessary to continue the drug tamoxifen for longer than the standard five years for these women.
Studies of tamoxifen have suggested that after five years of treatment women suffer low relapse rates.
But the latest study involving some 3,000 women at 127 British hospitals found high rates of relapse among women under the age of 40.
The findings have been reported in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
Researcher Professor Dianna Eccles, head of Cancer Research UK’s Southampton Clinical Trials Unit, said: “This study adds to the evidence that breast cancer can behave very differently when diagnosed in younger women. They may require a different approach to treatment – which isn’t necessarily understood from cancer trials in older patients.
“Research is the key to improving survival for these women and we urgently need trials to help us develop new treatments tailored specifically at this age group.”
* A second study published yesterday backed long-term treatment with tamoxifen. Researchers said ten years of treatment with the drug halved the risk of dying compared with five years of treatment – when women have the common oestrogen receptor positive form of cancer.
British researchers were reporting their findings at a conference of the American Society of Clinical Oncology.
They show a reduction in death rates of about 7%, equivalent to 60 deaths among the 3,500 women taking the drug for ten years.
The findings come from a study of nearly 7,000 women.
Researcher Dr Daniel Rea, of Birmingham University, UK, said: “These results are important as they establish that giving tamoxifen for longer than the current standard of five years significantly cuts the risk of breast cancer returning.
“Doctors are now likely to recommend continuing tamoxifen for an extra five years and this will result in many fewer breast cancer recurrences and breast cancer deaths worldwide."
Copson E.R. et al, Breast cancer diagnosis and treatment in women aged 18-40 years in the UK: the POSH study Journal of the National Cancer Institute 31 May 2013
aTTom: Long-term effects of continuing adjuvant tamoxifen to 10 years versus stopping at 5 years in 6,953 women with early breast cancer. [abstract]
Leave a Reply