Interview
with Neil Love, MD Breast Cancer Update for Medical Oncologists,
Program 6 2000
Play
Audio Below:
If
you look at the national death rates, in women age 20 to 69 —
that’s in young women and in middle-age women — the reduction
in the national death rates from breast cancer in Britain between
the late 1980s and the year 2000, there’s a reduction of 30
percent. It’s just suddenly dropped. And that’s not from
just tamoxifen. That’s, you know, earlier treatment, the use
of chemotherapy. But I think the use of hormonal therapy —
I think the British were the first, really, to take tamoxifen seriously.
So, we’ve had this very nice drop. That’s tamoxifen and
a number of other things, as well as screening.
And
in the United States, you’ve only got data out to 1997 so far
for the United States. But, we’re seeing, starting in about
1992, again, quite a rapid drop in the national mortality rates
from breast cancer. And I reckon that between about 1990 and the
year 2000, if we take the trend out to 1997 and extrapolate to the
year 2000, I reckon that the death rates will be about 25 percent
lower than they were in 1990. That’s a very big drop.
This
is the cancer that, for a woman who doesn’t smoke, causes more
death than any other type of cancer. And we’ve got a decrease
in 30 percent in the national mortality rate in Britain, about 25
percent in the United States. It must be chiefly due to better treatment,
but it’s a lot of little things, adding together, to make these
big trends.
The
other thing is, these decreases are still continuing. I mean the
treatments, the chemotherapy is getting better, the tamoxifen is
being given more widely and it’s being given for a longer period,
you know, five years rather than just two years. And the benefits
of the treatments in the 1980s are going to be seen in the mortality
trends in the 1990s. But the treatment improvements in the 1990s
are going to produce their main effects in the mortality rates of
the next ten years. So, by the year 2010, I think these trends are
going to continue, particularly in the UK. We’ve got data right
up to 1999. There’s no sign of any slowing down in the drop.
I reckon by the year 2010, the death rates in young women, middle
aged women, will be about half of what they were in 1990. It’s
the most rapid decrease in national cancer rates that’s ever
been produced by treatment. It’s really a very, very nice effect.
Relevant
Articles:
UK
and USA breast cancer deaths down 25% in year 2000 at ages 20-69
years R.; Boreham, J.; Clarke, M.; Davies, C., and Beral, V.. Lancet.
355(9217):1822, 2000 May 20. No abstract
