Tamoxifen with antidepressants may raise risk of breast cancer recurrence
June 4th, 2009 by Jennifer Walker-Journey
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is expected to issue a warming to doctors about an increased risk of the recurrence of breast cancer with patients taking both the breast cancer drug tamoxifen and select antidepressants, according to a study released last week at the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s annual meeting.
Researchers at Medco Health Solutions Inc. studied an estimated 1,300 women and found that women who were taking antidepressants such as Paxil, Prozac or Zoloft along with tamoxifen for at least one year had a breast-cancer recurrence rate of 16 percent. Women who were not taking the drugs reported a 7.5 percent recurrence rate. Antidepressants such as Celexa, Lexapro and Luvox appeared not to have an increased cancer recurrence rate.
Tamoxifen is a commonly used treatment for estrogen-dependent breast cancer, one of the most common types of breast cancer and one that has been associated with the use of hormone replacement therapy, HRT.
“If we lower the effectiveness of tamoxifen, you’d get worse outcomes.” Says Dr. Julie Gralow, an associate professor in oncology at the University of Washington School. She says many doctors in the U.S. also prescribe aromatase inhibitors rather than tamoxifen to block estrogen in post-menopausal women to prevent breast cancer from returning, which also avoids the tamoxifen-antidepressant interaction.
An estimated 30 percent of the half million American women taking tamoxifen have also been prescribed antidepressants. Medco says it has found that some doctors who treat breast cancer patients are not aware of the increased recurrence risk for breast cancer patients taking tamoxifen and antidepressants.
Source: The Wall Street Journal