Menopausal women in England who are at higher risk of breast cancer will be offered free medicine. The National Health Service believes that if one in four eligible women took the drug anastrozole, it would prevent at least 2,000 cases in England alone.
Rachel Watkin was faced with a dilemma. She knew she was at high risk of breast cancer.
He had surgery several years ago, but last year a scan showed the cancer had returned. Doctors advised this successful businessman to undergo a double mastectomy.
“I would have had to have a mastectomy just to minimize the risk, or wait until I had cancer. “Those are two options, neither of which is ideal because we are risking lives,” Watkin said.
The process of breast removal surgery, said Watkin, is scary. And he wasn’t sure what the final outcome would be. She said: “The whole recovery process was terrible, having had a double mastectomy.”
Vasiliki Kostoula, a breast cancer patient from Greece, after a radiological medical examination at a hospital in Athens, October 29, 2008. (Photo: REUTERS/Yannis Behrakis)
The UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has now given doctors the authority to prescribe anastrozole, a hormone drug that has been used to treat breast cancer in postmenopausal women. But the drug is still “off label,” meaning, not yet widely used.
Results of an international, randomized, blinded, placebo-controlled trial, called Ibis-II, showed a 49% reduction in breast cancer cases. This report was published in the Lancet medical journal in 2020.
The prescribed dose is 1 milligram tablet every day for five years. The drug works by blocking an enzyme that reduces the amount of the hormone estrogen in the body. The UK health service believes around 289,000 women could benefit from the drug.
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Trish Jamieson already knew that her family was at higher risk for cancer. Her older sister, Noreen, died of breast cancer when she was only 38 years old. Jamieson is also facing this disease, after being diagnosed with stage 3 ovarian peritoneal cancer in November 2019. She hopes her children will receive more protection.
“I am calmer with this medicine while my child is concerned because he now has to continue to have regular check-ups. But at least there is medicine for them and they know what they have to do,” he said.
According to research, the most common side effects of the drug are hot flashes, weakness, pain or stiffness in the joints, as well as skin rashes, nausea, headaches and osteoporosis.
Consultant Oncologist Sacha Howell of the Christie NHS Trust in Manchester said current cancer services were unable to cope with the disease. So, any effort that can reduce the number of women requiring treatment would be welcomed.
Menopausal Women Who Are More At Risk of Breast Cancer Will Be Offered Free Medicine
“I run a prevention clinic and I also still treat breast cancer patients. So, clinics are overwhelmed with these patients and so we have the number of breast cancer cases increasing, much more than we can handle. So, reducing the number of patients coming in, that would really be amazing,” Howell said.
Professor Mike Osborn of the Royal College of Pathologists agrees.
“The truth is that the workforce in pathology and all specialties has not been able to meet the demand for services, a demand that is increasing as our population ages, as we get better at diagnosing cancer and other diseases, and as more drug options become available,” he said. [ka/ab]
2023-11-13 14:23:11
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