THE ITALIAN STUDY OF BREAST-CANCER CHEMOP REVENTION WITH TAMOXIFEN

There is currently a large breast cancer chemoprevention trial in Ital y, The trial is based on the use of the antioestrogen tamoxifen, which is one of the most successful and most studied anticancer drugs, Ther e is a strong evidence that this drug can prevent the growing of contr olateral cancer in women previously operated for breast cancer. The ch emoprevention trial using tamoxifen includes healthy women, aged 35 to 70 and hysterectomised. The participants are faking either 20 mg/day of tamoxifen or placebo for 5 years, in double blind; then they are fo llowed-up clinically and instrumentally every 6 months for the further 5 years, The main end-point of the study is to verify the reduction o f incidence and mortality from breast cancer, It was decided to recrui t only hysterectomised women on the consideration that, according to s ome studies, tamoxifen could give an additional risk of endometrial ca ncer: the Italian study was especially designed with the intention of avoiding this unjustified risk.