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| |  Most High-Risk Women Reluctant to Take Tamoxifen to Prevent Breast Cancer ANN ARBOR, Mich -- December 2, 2009 -- Even when women at high risk of developing breast cancer are well informed about the risks and benefits of using the anti-oestrogen therapy tamoxifen for cancer prevention, only 6% said they were likely to take it. These are the results of a study that appears online in the journal Breast Cancer Research and Treatment. Researchers at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center created a decision aid designed to inform women about the risks and benefits associated with tamoxifen that was tailored to each woman’s health history. In this study, 632 women who were at high risk of developing breast cancer within the next 5 years participated. “Tailored information is critical because the risks and benefits vary across women. This is one of the most detailed tailored decision aids to address breast cancer prevention. The information about the risks and benefits of tamoxifen was tailored to each woman’s health history. That means, when women read this decision aid, they learned about how the drug was likely to affect them given their age, race, breast cancer history and medical history,” says lead author Angela Fagerlin, PhD, University of Michigan Medical School and VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System, both in Ann Arbor, Michigan. After viewing the decision aid, 41% of women correctly answered 6 questions about the risks and benefits of tamoxifen and 63% correctly answered at least 5 of the questions. Despite this understanding, only 29% of women said they were likely to seek more information about tamoxifen, and only 29% said they would consult their doctor for it. A scant 6% of women said they were likely to take tamoxifen. However, 3 months later, less than 1% of participants had started taking tamoxifen and less than 6% had either consulted their doctor or sought more information. “For any given woman, there is not a right or wrong answer in regards to whether she should take tamoxifen to prevent a first diagnosis of breast cancer. The goal of decision aids is to explain the risks and benefits in a clear way so that the woman is able to weigh these factors and make an informed decision about what is best for her,” Dr. Fagerlin says. In this study, 80% of women were concerned about the side effects associated with tamoxifen therapy. These side effects include hot flashes, sexual problems, as well as rare incidences of endometrial cancer, blood clots, or cataracts. “Experts have bemoaned the dearth of women taking these pills, worried that word has not gotten out about tamoxifen’s ability to prevent breast cancer in high-risk women. Our study shows that even when the word does get out, most women are too concerned about the pill’s side effects to want to take it,” says senior study author Peter Ubel, MD, Center for Behavioral and Decision Sciences in Medicine at University of Michigan.
SOURCE: Breast Cancer Research and Treatment
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