Which is better tamoxifen or arimidex

Arimidex doesn't work in women who are premenopausal because their ovaries make most of their estrogen. Tamoxifen belongs to a class of drugs called selective estrogen receptor modulators SERMs , which work by blocking estrogen from binding to its receptors in the breast. This drug works as well in both premenopausal and postmenopausal women. With an average of four years of treatment on the ATAC study, hormone receptor-positive participants taking Arimidex were 22 percent more likely to be cancer-free than those taking tamoxifen patients on Arimidex vs.

In addition, the absolute reduction of risk among those taking Arimidex compared to those taking tamoxifen increased from 1. These are small but important differences, and the most significant result is that the gap is increasing over time.

Both drugs cause hot flashes, but unlike tamoxifen, Arimidex does not cause blood clots or increase the risk of uterine cancer. However, there is a down side to being on Arimidex.

So that kind of tells us that we really want to think about toxicity in choosing adjuvant endocrine therapy for this population. We did see differences in side effect profiles of the two medications with a higher risk for secondary cancers, including endometrial cancer, and higher risk for thrombosis with tamoxifen.

Whereas we see more musculoskeletal symptoms and risk for fracture and hyperlipidemia with the aromatase inhibitors. There were 13 strokes, vs 4 in the tamoxifen group, and 13 transient ischemic attacks, compared with 5 in the tamoxifen group.

Previously reported results showed that anastrozole was slightly better than tamoxifen in preventing recurrence. The year breast cancer—free interval rate was An interaction with age was observed, with significantly better results for anastrozole vs tamoxifen in patients younger than age 60 A battery of 5 different validated quality-of-life instruments assessed patient-reported outcomes in a subgroup of 1, women to explore how women who take these drugs actually experience them; were randomized to tamoxifen and , to anastrozole.

Patients were treated for 5 years. The quality-of-life results were reported this year at SABCS and published in The Lancet online December 10, , along with the primary trial results. Patients under age 60 had worse vasomotor and vaginal symptoms, whichever drug they were taking. Since this women is at low risk for cardiovascular events and not at risk for uterine cancer, tamoxifen would be a better choice.

Ganz said. Disclosure: Dr. Median TTP was similar for both treatments 8. The tamoxifen:anastrozole hazards ratio was 0.