LV study to test cancer treatments

Art Nadler

Tuesday, May 25, 1999 | 10:16 a.m.

A Las Vegas research foundation has been selected to participate in studies on a potential breast cancer prevention drug.

The Southern Nevada Cancer Research Foundation, 601 S. Rancho Drive, will be one of 400 sites throughout the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico comparing the cancer drug Tamoxifen with Raloxifen.

The Food and Drug Administration approved Tamoxifen in October to combat breast cancer in women, and also as preventive therapy for women who are at high risk of developing the disease.

Raloxifen was approved by the FDA in December 1997 to prevent osteoporosis. European studies have also shown that it can be effective in treating breast cancer.

This will be the first study pitting the drugs against each other, Dr. John Ellerton, an oncologist with the foundation, said. He said Raloxifen has never been tested in the United States for treating breast cancer.

Ellerton said Tamoxifen was shown to be 49 percent effective in treating women with breast cancer, according to the study's results published in April 1998.

There were 13,000 premenopausal and postmenopausal women at high risk for breast cancer tested in the Tamoxifen study. This study with Raloxifen will test 22,000 women, he said.

Ellerton said the study will begin July 1. Women will be given either Tamoxifen or Raloxifen for five years. Neither the patient nor doctor will know who is getting which drug.

The study is being sponsored by the National Cancer Institute. Participants in the study will not be charged for any of the drugs. For information, call the Southern Nevada Cancer Research Foundation at 384-0013.