Pre-emptive drug could prevent breast cancer

For some healthy women from 55 Thurs on tamoxifen for breast cancer - that can have serious side effects - could be worth the risk.

Although tamoxifen, the risk of uterine cancer, heart attack and stroke, an analysis of data from four clinical trials with tamoxifen, an increase of 1.5 million women can come to the conclusion that 'there is a window in which the sales of the drug on behalf of breast cancer should be taken to prevent, says Peter Alperin of Archimedes, a medical consultation in San Francisco.

Women are more likely to benefit are those aged 50 to 55, which assesses the risk of breast cancer over five years to more than 66 percent higher than normal, he said. For every 1000 women treated with tamoxifen may Alperin claimed in 29 cases and nine deaths averted if, ultimately saving money for health care providers.

"It would be against its use except in the care of high risk, because the benefits would be substantially greater than the damage," Peter Sasieni the Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine in London said.