Interview
with Neil Love, MD from Breast Cancer Update for Surgeons,
Program 1 2000
Play
Audio Below:
Supposing
that there is no mortality benefit, does that mean it’s not
worth it for a woman not to get cancer? That’s absurd! Because
if she gets cancer she’s got a risk of dying, that’s true,
but even if she is not going to die she’s going to go through
a lot and her life will be changed, so I think it’s worth preventing
cancer. I think we’ll never get the answer to the mortality
question simply because the trial was never designed that way. And
it’s interesting that the critics of the trial who, after the
results were published, continued to criticize — they just
looked for different things to criticize — and instead of criticizing
the use of tamoxifen, they now mention things like this. Well, when
this trial was started and women were enrolled, those women we’re
told that any new findings apropos to their participation
would certainly be made known to them. One of the findings that
must be made known to them is the discovery that tamoxifen does
what we hoped it would do; it inhibits 50% of the breast cancers.
And when we got to the statistically pre-determined number of events
that triggered the analysis, the analysis showed that this was the
outcome. That’s the end of the trial. The trial was not stopped
prematurely, the trial doesn’t have a time frame in its design.
The trial has an endpoint of 47% reduction in the rate of cancer.
We passed that; actually we got 49% of the first analysis, and that’s
the end of the trial. It happened sooner for a very simple reason:
There were more participants with higher risk than we anticipated.
In other words, the average participant in this trial had a slightly
higher risk of breast cancer than we thought they would have. That’s
just who comes forward.
Chemoprevention
of breast cancer [Review]. Brown, P. H. and Lippman, S. M. (Reprint available from: Lippman
SM Univ Texas, MD Anderson Canc Ctr, Dept Clin Canc Prevent 1515
Holcombe Blvd,Box 236 Houston, TX 77030 USA). Breast Cancer Research
& Treatment. 62(1):1-17, 2000 Jul.
Vitamin
A analogue for breast cancer prevention: a grade of F or incomplete?
Response Piantadosi, S. (Reprint available from: Piantadosi S Johns Hopkins
Univ, Sch Med, Johns Hopkins Oncol Ctr 550 N Broadway,Suite 1103
Baltimore, MD 21205 USA).. Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
92(3):274-275, 2000 Feb 2. No abstract
Tamoxifen
for the prevention of breast cancer in the high-risk woman.
Morrow, M. and Jordan, V. C. (Reprint available from: Morrow M 676
N St Clair St,13th Floor, Room 13-104 Chicago, IL 60611 USA).. Annals
of Surgical Oncology. 7(1):67-71, 2000 Jan-Feb. No abstract
