More than two thied of cancer patient diagnosed every year
Read Time:2 Minute, 23 Second
TRENDING NOW: #MTNshortz3sixtyworld
More than two thirds of breast cancer patients diagnosed each year could be SPARED from gruelling chemotherapy ordeal by taking a daily pill.
Breast cancer sufferers undergo a tiring six-month course of chemotherapy
Landmark study found a daily pill such as tamoxifen could stop cancer returning
Researchers from Montefiore Medical Centre New York studied 10,000 women
More than two thirds of breast cancer patients a year could be spared the ordeal of chemotherapy after one of the biggest breakthroughs in the last two decades.
Around 123,000 women in the US and 23,000 in the UK are diagnosed with hormone receptor-positive, HER2-negative, axillary node-negative early-stage breast cancer (HR+HER2-AN) each year.
But for 69 per cent of these women, they do not need to go through chemotherapy and only require a daily pill – such as tamoxifen – to stop their cancer returning after surgery.
Remarkably, the researchers believe that these women can be easily identified via a simple genetic test that is already widely available on the NHS and approved by the FDA.
Oncologists have hailed the decade-long study, which involved more than 10,000 women and was led by Montefiore Medical Center in New York. The results were presented at the largest cancer conference in the world.
HR+HER2-AN is the most common type of breast cancer and accounts for half of all cases.
These women, whose cancer has not yet spread to their lymph nodes, will first have surgery in the form of a lumpectomy or mastectomy to remove the cancer, and may receive radiotherapy.
Then comes hormone therapy pills such as tamoxifen, which block or slow down signals in the body that trigger the growth of cancer cells, and are typically taken for five years.
Patients often also have four to six months of chemotherapy after surgery, to kill any remaining cancer cells. This is supposed to ensure their cancer doesn’t return, but it can come with debilitating side effects.
This is vital for those with the highest risk of their breast cancer returning after surgery, but it comes with side effects such as hair loss, sickness and fatigue.
However, about 69 per cent of women actually fall into a lower risk group, known as ‘intermediate’. For these, the benefits of chemotherapy have always been less clear cut.
Mother-of-two is charged $16,000 for breast cancer surgery
Traditionally, it has been up to doctors to decide if they should have the harrowing treatment. The results of the new study, however, show that these women do not need chemotherapy.
It found that after nine years of taking daily hormone therapy pills, the survival rate for these patients was 93.9 per cent, which is almost exactly the same as the 93.8 per cent rate if women had undergone chemotherapy too.
Happy
0 %
Sad
0 %
Excited
0 %
Sleepy
0 %
Angry
0 %
Surprise
0 %
0
0