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Thursday, July 18, 2002Researchers further divided the 1,669 patients in the study into groups based on whether their cancers were sensitive or not sensitive to estrogen, a hormone that can promote the growth of breast cancer cells. There were 382 in the study whose tumors were not sensitive to estrogen, described in medical terms as being estrogen receptor negative, or ER-negative. There were 1,217 who were ER-positive. For the remaining 70 patients, the ER status was unknown. About half in each of these groups were treated with chemotherapy followed by five years of tamoxifen. The other half of each group received tamoxifen only. Researchers followed the patients for an average of almost six years and found that the value of chemotherapy depended directly on the estrogen sensitivity of the patients' disease. Among the ER-positive patients, chemotherapy provided no benefit. The five-year, disease-free survival for those who took only tamoxifen was 85 percent, while it was 84 percent for those who had both chemo and tamoxifen. However, for the ER-negative patients, chemotherapy could be a life-saver. The five-year, disease-free survival for those who had both chemo and tamoxifen was 84 percent. But for ER-negative patients who took only tamoxifen, the survival rate was only 69 percent, a 15 percentage point difference. That’s good news. Chemotherapy can be especially noxious and often has to be given intravenously. Tamoxifen, on the other hand, has minimal side effects and is just one pill a day. posted by Sydney on 7/18/2002 07:39:00 AM 0 comments 0 Comments: |
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