Femara outperforms tamoxifen in preventing breast cancer relapse

Femara outperforms tamoxifen in preventing breast cancer relapse

EAST HANOVER, NJ - Novartis AG has got the go ahead from the US Food and Drug Administration for its breast cancer drug Femara. This drug has already been approved for use in post-menopausal women who present with advanced breast cancer.

Femara belongs to a class of drugs called as the aromatase inhibitors. These drugs decrease the level of estrogen in the blood thereby preventing the trigger mechanism which initiates the development of breast tumors. The approval came closely behind a study conducted by the Senology Center of Eastern Switzerland in Kantonsspital, which found that Femara was 29 percent more effective than tamoxifen in preventing the cancer from returning.

Tamoxifen is considered as the emperor in breast cancer drugs and is the routinely prescribed drug after surgery. But in the clinical trials involving more than 8,000 women, Femara outperformed tamoxifen as far as the cancer relapse was concerned. Femara was 27 percent more effective than tamoxifen in preventing the cancer from spreading to other parts of the body and 19 percent more effective in preventing a relapse of breast cancer in women who had not undergone chemotherapy.

The details of this study appear in the December 29 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. "Five years of treatment with tamoxifen reduces the risk of breast cancer recurrence by 47 percent and the risk of death by 26 percent. Despite these benefits, about half the women so treated relapse," wrote Dr. Beat Thurlimann and colleagues in describing the effectiveness of the two drugs.

Shares in Novartis AG jumped 1.2 percent in the backdrop of the news. Femara is thus the only drug approved for use in hormone-sensitive breast cancer after chemotherapy as well as five years after tamoxifen therapy.