Thanks to improved treatment methods, mortality rates from breast cancer have plummeted and should continue to do so, according to a letter from British researchers published in the latest issue of The Lancet.
Much of the credit for the reported 25% decrease in deaths for women in the United States and United Kingdom can be attributed to the widespread and effective use of tamoxifen, said Sir Richard Peto, a professor of epidemiology at Oxford University, according to the Associated Press (May 19, 2000).
But general advances in early breast cancer detection have also been significant factors, wrote Peto and his co-authors.
"This substantial reduction in national mortality rates has come...from the careful evaluation and adoption of many interventions....If the decrease in death rates is still continuing, then the figure indicates that in the year 2000, the deaths rates will be about 70 per 100,000 women, aged 50-60 years," the group said (The Lancet, May 20, 2000).
Death rates from breast cancer were monitored between 1987 and 1997. The annual mortality rate for American women aged 50 to 69 dipped by 18%. Women aged 20-49 saw a slightly larger drop of 19%. In Britain, where tamoxifen was invented and used first, the annual breast cancer death rate per 100,000 women, ages 50-69, decreased by 22%.
This is the first time that such a dramatic correlation has been made between improvements in treatment and a fall in national death rates, Peto said.
The study focused on the U.S. and Britain because these countries were among the first to use tamoxifen. One million women currently use the drug worldwide.
By Shalmali Pal
AuntMinnie.com staff writer
May 19, 2000
The full text of the letter can be found at http://www.thelancet.com/newlancet/reg/issues/vol355no9217/menu_NOD12.html
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