Novartis’s Femara reduces cancer recurrence in women, finds study

The study found that post-menopausal women who took the Novartis drug Femara for one to seven years after finishing a five-year regimen of tamoxifen reduced the risk of cancer by 63%. The drug which is generically popular as letrozole, reduced the risk of cancer spreading to other areas of the body by 61%, and cut the risk that a tumor would develop in the unaffected breast by more than 80%.

The popular estrogen-blocking drug tamoxifen, sold by AstraZeneca was shown to cut the risk of cancer recurrence by close to 50%. But benefits of the pill sold generically and under the brand Nolvadex, decreased significantly after five years. Tamoxifen is also suspected to raise the risk of death from strokes and endometrial cancer.

Paul Goss of Massachusetts General Hospital, who conducted the study has based his findings on an analysis of 1,579 women who decided to switch to letrozole from a placebo after the trial was halted. Their results were compared to about 800 women who continued with the placebo. After three years of completion of the study, women who began letrozole had only a two percent risk of tumor recurrence, compared with almost five percent in those choosing no treatment.

Dr Goss said: “What is important for doctors and patients to recognize unfortunately is that the risk of recurrence of this type of breast cancer does not end at five years.”