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Breast Cancer Wonder Drug Hailed ... But Survival Costs GBP 1,000 a Time

Posted on: Friday, 10 December 2004, 03:00 CST

WOMEN with breast cancer were yesterday offered renewed hope for full recovery with a new drug that convincingly outperforms the gold standard treatment currently available on the NHS.

The announcement is expected to lead to a surge in demand for the drug, anastrozole, which will put the GBP 11 billion NHS budget for drugs under enormous pressure to respond despite its prohibitive price tag.

At present, post-menopausal women with early hormone-responsive and localised breast cancer are treated with tamoxifen which costs only GBP 20 to GBP 30 a year to prescribe. The new product, which is marketed as Arimidex by AstraZenica, will cost nearly 40 times more at GBP 1,000 per treatment.

With at least 100,000 women taking tamoxifen at any time, the switch could cost nearly GBP 100 million and it may be several years before the drug is approved for NHS prescription.

Cancer research charities called on the government last night to look seriously at the benefits of anastrozole before issuing guidelines for its prescription.

Trials involving more than 9,300 women showed that anastrozole increased survival rates by 10 per cent and had a 14 per cent better performance at stopping the spread of cancer.

Sue Green, a senior cancer information nurse at the charity CancerBACUP, said: "The anastrozole study results show the treatment could produce even better results than tamoxifen for post- menopausal women with early breast cancer.

"Women already taking tamoxifen should be assured that the treatment is very effective," she said, "but anyone concerned about this news should discuss treatment options with their doctor.

"We would also urge the National Institute for Clinical Excellence to assess the data urgently, so health professionals are given clear guidance about anastrozole."

Professor Anthony Howell, of Christie Hospital NHS Trust in Manchester, who is a chief investigator in a British-led trial, gave the findings at a conference in Texas this week.

He said: "The higher rates of recurrence and the increased numbers of adverse events and treatment withdrawals associated with tamoxifen lend support to the approach of offering the most effective and well-tolerated therapy at the earliest opportunity.

"Five years of anastrozole should now be considered as the preferred initial adjuvant endocrine treatment for postmenopausal women with hormone-receptor-positive localised breast cancer," said Prof Howell.

The new drug has proven to have less aggressive side-effects than tamoxifen, which does have a good success rate in combating cancer but can provoke endometrial cancer and blood-clotting disorders. Tamoxifen therapy for five years after surgery is currently the established treatment for post-menopausal women with hormone- sensitive breast cancer, but the researchers who have been investigating anastrozole are now recommending that women in that category should be given this drug instead.

Both drugs work by interfering with the female hormone oestrogen. Tamoxifen prevents the growth-promoting actions of oestrogen on the cells of the breast and blocks a molecule called the oestrogen receptor.

In contrast, anastrozole shuts down the production of oestrogen and therefore reduces the levels circulating in the body.

But both drugs are only effective in women whose cancers are reliant on the oestrogen receptor for their growth.

Source: Scotsman, The

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