At 12 p.m. this Sunday the Susan G. Komen Mid-Michigan Breast Cancer Race for the Cure 5K run/walk will take place. To prepare for the special race and to raise awareness about breast cancer, Lansing area business owners are decking the downtown Principal Shopping District out with pink ribbons. In total, volunteers tied more than 1,000 pink ribbons on downtown parking meters, benches, fences and trees. Overall, more than 7,000 people are expected to participate in the race and the shop owners recently stated that they wanted to make sure those involved feel welcome and to show their support to breast cancer survivors in whatever way they can.
In the spirit of breast cancer prevention and awareness, I wanted to bring your attention to a recent study called STAR that indicates that there are two good choices to prevent breast cancer for women at high-risk. The STAR study compared nearly 20,000 postmenopausal women at higher risk of breast cancer who took one or another of the two drugs for about five years and then stopped. After about seven years, there were 310 cases of invasive breast cancer among the Evista users vs. 247 cases in the Tamoxifen users. While that is a 24% higher incidence for the Evista users, Dr. Scott Lippman, a cancer specialist at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, doesn’t see much of a difference between the two drugs. Specifically, while Tamoxifen is considered the “gold standard” because of its effectiveness and long-lasting effects, Evista is safer. Overall, Dr. Lippman states that he doesn’t “see a clear winner”, but instead two good choices with different risks and benefits.
Currently, Tamoxifen is widely used to treat cancer after it’s diagnosed, and Evista is commonly used to treat osteoporosis. Unfortunately, neither drug has gained widespread popularity as a cancer prevention treatment. Doctors hope the findings of the STAR study will prompt more women at a high-risk for cancer to consider taking the medications.
recently named in the 2009 edition of Best Lawyer's In America, David Mittleman has been representing seriously injured people since 1985. A partner with Church Wyble PC—a division of Grewal Law PLLC—Mr. Mittleman and his partners focus on medical malpractice, wrongful death, car accidents, slip and falls, nursing home injury, pharmacy/pharmacist negligence and disability claims.
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