Study: Raloxifene Prevents Breast Cancer

The drug raloxifene protects postmenopausal women from developing invasive breast cancer, found a U.S. study.

The study, published in the journal Clinical Cancer Research, found that the drug appears to reduce risk in women with a family history of breast cancer down to a similar level to women without affected relatives.

Compared with a placebo drug, the study also found that use of raloxifene was associated with a 58-percent reduction in breast-cancer risk in women without a family history of the disease and an 89-percent reduction in risk for women with a family history of breast cancer.

Lead author Dr. Marc E. Lippman of the University of Michigan said he cannot explain why protection seems greatest in women who may be genetically predisposed to develop the disease.

We don’t know what to make of this observation, said Lippman. It could be due to chance, or there may be other factors at work that we don’t know about.