Can switching to exemestane improve breast cancer survival?
Switching from tamoxifen to the breast cancer drug exemestane after 2-3 years of tamoxifen treatment reduces the risk of death, reported six newspapers (13 February 2007). The newspapers were generally accurate in their reports of a large randomised controlled trial, the findings of which are likely to be reliable. • Switching from tamoxifen to the drug exemestane after 2-3 years of tamoxifen treatment reduces the risk of death in post-menopausal women with breast cancer, reported six newspapers on 13 February 2007 (1-6). Four newspapers (1-4) noted that exemestane has been approved for use by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) (7). • The story was based on a randomised controlled trial of 4,724 post-menopausal women with unilateral invasive, oestrogen-receptor-positive or oestrogen-receptor-unknown breast cancer (8, 9). Participants who were disease-free after 2-3 years of tamoxifen were randomised to either switch to the drug exemestane or continue with
