The journal 'Cancer' published a study Jan. 24 2011 that finds an anti-estrogen drug, tamoxifen, may significantly lower risk of death from lung cancer. The report found that women on anti-estrogen therapy, used in the fight against breast cancer, have an 87 percent less chance of death from lung cancer than do women not on that therapy.
The study, Lung cancer mortality risk among breast cancer patients treated with anti-estrogens, was conducted by Dr. Elisabetta Rapiti and colleagues from the Geneva Cancer Registry. Their research team studied the data of 6,665 women in Switzerland diagnosed with breast cancer between the years 1980 and 2003.
Anti-Estrogen Drug Tamoxifen
Of these women with breast cancer 46 percent had been placed on anti-estrogen therapy, the other 54 percent were not. The study's authors say that in all likelihood all of the women on the anti-estrogen therapy were put upon tamoxifen, as aromatase inhibitors were not then being used by doctors in Switzerland.
They studied in the data all women who had subsequently contacted and died from lung cancer and when compared against the general population and rates of death from lung cancer, they found that for the women with breast cancer on the anti-estrogen therapy the Standardized Mortality Ratios (SMRs) for lung cancer was decreased by 87 percent. For those not on anti-estrogen therapy SMR were of no significant difference from that of the general population.
The researchers note that while the base number of 6,665 patients is a large number for a study, only 40 of these women developed lung cancer; this figure is considered low in a study of this kind and researchers say more study is needed to verify the conclusion.
Taking Estrogen and Increased Lung Cancer Rate
The impulse to examine anti-estrogen drugs and the prevention of lung cancer came about because scientists were noting that women who were taking estrogen had a higher risk of dying from lung cancer. Researchers began to wonder if anti-estrogen therapy might produced the opposite result.
Those researchers involved in the study, and other researchers, say more work is needed to discover how much of a role anti-estrogen therapy may play in lung cancer prevention. There is also indications that anti-estrogen therapy may be effective in lung cancer prevention in men but, again, they caution that more research is needed. There is, Dr. Rapiti says, cause for optimism.
"Our results support the hypothesis that there is a hormonal influence on lung cancer which has been suggested by findings such as the presence of oestrogen and progesterone receptors in a substantial proportion of lung cancers," Dr. Rapiti said in a press release. "If prospective studies confirm our results...this could have substantial implications for clinical practice."
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