Why does BCA recommend that healthy women not take tamoxifen to prevent breast cancer?
Giving tamoxifen to otherwise healthy women as a “prevention” pill increases their risk of serious side effects including the risk of blood clots in the lungs, cancer of the lining of the uterus (endometrial cancer), and hot flashes. There may be other risks that are still unknown since there has been little research on the drug’s long-term effects in healthy women. Tamoxifen (trade name Nolvadex®) has been used for many years to treat advanced breast cancer and reduce the risk of a recurrence following an initial diagnosis. For women with breast cancer, the benefits of the drug may well outweigh the risks of the side effects. For healthy women, however, the risk/benefit analysis is not so clear. We still do not know if tamoxifen merely delays the onset of cancer, and how taking it while healthy affects later treatment of the disease. Nor do we know much about how effective the drug is in women of color, since only a small number of women of color participated in the initial trial of t
