Inexpensive Generic Drugs Reduce Risk of Death in Post-Menopausal Women

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Inexpensive generic drugs can improve rates of survival in women diagnosed with breast cancer, which disproportionately affects Latinas, CBS News reports.

The studies published in The Lancet , revealed “ a class of hormone-therapy drugs called aromatase inhibitors and bone-preserving drugs called bisphosphonates” dramatically increased the rate of survival in post-menopausal women with early breast cancer.

“It may be that this is a first step in helping us figure out which patients are more likely benefit and which patients are not,” Dr. Dawn L. Hershman, associate professor of medicine and director of the breast cancer program at the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center at Columbia University and New York-Presbyterian Hospital, told CBS News. “We can strategize to give the medications that are going to give the most benefit and avoid the toxicity and the cost for patients with minimal benefits.”

The Early Breast Cancer Trialists’ Collaborative Group, analyzed results of numerous studies on “hormone therapy breast cancer treatments and bone drugs” for 10 years.

Breast cancer affects up to two-thirds of post-menopausal women, according to researchers.

Hormone therapy works to “block the receptors for estrogen or progesterone on the tumor or works to eliminate these hormones from the system.”