New Breast Cancer Drug May Slow Lung Cancer Progress

The breast cancer drug tamoxifen can stall the progression of non-small cell lung cancer, according to new reports.

Tamoxifen has had an up and down history in research assays, but is largely regarded as one of the oldest known medications that can block the functionality of estrogen in the body. There seems to be correlative evidence showing most non-small cell lung cancers respond to estrogen. This gave rise to thoughts that tamoxifen, when used as a part of breast cancer drug treatment cascade, may decrease incidence of death from lung cancer.

Swiss researchers showed that of 6,665 breast cancer patients, of whom 3,066 took tamoxifen, the tamoxifen group showed a slightly lower incidence in developing breast cancer than those who did not take the drug.

While the results of this study were not significant enough to provide a confidence level of applied reporting, it was enough to give researchers a clue that the use of tamoxifen may play a future role in starving a fuel source for development of a lung tumor in women with malignant cancer.