Fears as breast cancer patients quit drug too soon

HUNDREDS of women are reducing the survival benefits of an anti-breast cancer drug because they stop taking it prematurely.

Taking Tamoxifen for five years after treatment for breast cancer almost halves the risk the disease will recur. This has the knock-on effect of improving survival rates. However a major study has found more than one-third of women stopped taking the drug after three-and-a-half years.

The authors of the study, based at Trinity College Dublin and St James Hospital, warned this was “likely to have a negative impact on the therapeutic success of Tamoxifen”. Taking Tamoxifen for five years can reduce the risk of subsequent death from cancer by a quarter; taking it for a shorter time reduces its survival benefit.