Researchers believe a hormone therapy drug already used to treat breast cancer can significantly reduce its spread in women with a particular type of the disease.

Professor Nigel Bundred at UHSM, working with colleagues at the Christie Hospital, Edinburgh and Nottingham studied whether the drug Exemestane (an aromatase inhibitor class drug) halted the growth of in situ breast cancer and potentially prevented it progressing to invasive breast cancer by spreading outside of the ducts of the breast. 

Ductal cancer in situ (DCIS) accounts for a quarter of all screen-detected breast cancer. Most patients with this type of disease are treated with breast conservation surgery followed often by radiotherapy and/or tamoxifen.

However, cancer can return in as many as 30 per cent of cases, and approximately half of all recurrences are invasive (potentially spreading cancer). Now, in a randomised trial involving 90 women who were all postmenopausal and diagnosed as having oestrogen receptor (ER) – positive DCIS, researchers have found that Exemestane was able to reduce DCIS growth regardless of tumour size.

The results suggest that the drug is a potential alternative to tamoxifen in patients who have undergone breast conservation. Professor Bundred, of the Department of Academic Surgery at UHSM explains: “Breast cancer is the most common form of cancer in women, with around 40,000 new cases diagnosed in the UK each year. About two-thirds of cases involve tumours that express oestrogen and/or progestogen, which makes them susceptible to hormonal therapy.