Pfizer presents new Aromasin breast cancer drug data

A new study from Pfizer has found that patients switching from tamoxifen to Aromasin (exemestane), its breast cancer drug, are more likely to survive and less likely to have the disease return.

Researchers compared 2,372 patients using tamoxifen for five years with 2,352 tamoxifen patients who switched to using Aromasin after two or three years. They found that the second group were 17 per cent more likely to survive and 25 per cent less likely to suffer a relapse of the disease.

The new data follows on from previous results which showed that patients who had used tamoxifen for postmenopausal hormone-receptor positive cancer, but then switched to using Aromasin, were 35 per cent less likely to suffer a recurrence of the disease.

Professor Charles Coombes, the lead investigator of the study, remarked: “Exemestane is the only anti-hormonal therapy that has been shown to demonstrate improved overall survival over tamoxifen alone.”

“We have also now been able to study the long-term effects of exemestane after completion of therapy and our results provide women and their physicians with important long-term information on the use of exemestane,” he added.

Aromasin is approved for use in over 40 countries. Like tamoxifen, it is an aromatase inhibitor which helps to prevent the production of oestrogen, a hormone to which some types of breast cancer respond by growing.

Tamoxifen was discovered by ICI in the 1960s but it took scientists approximately 15 years to fully realise the drug’s potential as a breast cancer treatment, according to the UK’s Coalition for Medical Progress.

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