Study: Anastrozole More Effective Than Tamoxifen for Advanced Breast Cancer

Patients with advanced breast cancer who are treated with anastrozole appear to do better than those treated with tamoxifen, according to researchers at Sanitas Hospitales in Barcelona, Spain.

Researchers recruited 238 patients with hormone-dependent advanced breast cancer and gave them either anastrozole or tamoxifen daily.

According to the study presented at the Nottingham International Breast Cancer Meeting in England, the length of time prior to disease progression was 7 months longer for patients taking anastrozole (12.3 months) than for patients on tamoxifen (5.3 months).

And 35 months after the start of the trial, 61 percent of the patients taking anastrozole had died compared to 92 percent of patients taking tamoxifen.

"Our results suggest that anastrozole is more effective than tamoxifen in postmenopausal patients with [estrogen receptor-positive advanced breast cancer]," said the researchers. "These data are supported by the results of the North American study where 88.7 percent of patients overall had hormone-sensitive tumors, and time to progression was significantly increased by 5.5 months in the anastrozole arm compared with the tamoxifen arm.

" Furthermore, these data are the first to demonstrate an improvement for any aromatase inhibitor over tamoxifen in overall survival," the researchers said.

Other Sources: Nottingham International Breast Cancer Meeting