Femara offers significant advantages over tamoxifen for Breast Cancer patients

New results of a 12-year study suggest that treatment with Femara (letrozole), from Novartis, offers lower recurrence rates and significantly improved long-term survival time for women with hormone receptor-positive early Breast Cancer compared to tamoxifen therapy. According to the study's lead author, Meredith Regan from the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, women given Femara monotherapy after surgery for five years had a 20% reduced risk of their breast cancer coming back and were 21% less likely to die compared with women given tamoxifen alone. The research also suggested that patients receiving sequential treatment - tamoxifen followed by Femara, or vice versa - did not exhibit a substantial decrease in recurrence or mortality risk compared with those given Femara alone but these might still be useful strategies when considering an individual patient's risk. The study reinforces the evidence that Femara monotherapy is better than tamoxifen in controlling breast cancer recurrence and improving survival for postmenopausal women with endocrine-responsive early breast cancer. This data, based on the BIG 1-98 study, is published in The Lancet Oncology (21 October 2011 doi:10.1016/S1470-2045(11)70270-4).