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American Morning
Interview With Susan Love
Aired October 10, 2003 - 09:20 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: A drug is offering new hope to hundreds of thousands of breast cancer patients. FEMARA can reduce the risk of occurrence by nearly half. That's according to "The New England Journal of Medicine."
For every one hundred patients, FEMARA prevented six women from getting new or recurring cancer. The results, in fact, were so dramatic that researchers stopped the trial early so that all the women in the trial could start taking the drug.
Joining us this morning from Los Angeles to discuss the findings, Dr. Susan Love. She is an oncologist and also the author of "Dr. Susan Love's Breast Book." Good morning, nice to see you Dr. Love. Thanks for joining us.
DR. SUSAN LOVE, ONCOLOGIST: Good morning. Nice to be here.
O'BRIEN: Thank you very much. Give us a sense of how many women we are talking about will be affected by this news?
LOVE: Well first of all, it's important to note that this drug only works in post-menopausal women. It doesn't work in pre- menopausal women because it interferes with the production of estrogen post-menopausely. And secondly, it only works for people whose tumors are sensitive to estrogen.
So what they did is they gave the drug to women who had already taken Tamoxifen for five years, a drug that blocks estrogen. And they found that once they stopped Tamoxifen if they took this drug, letrozole, they could reduce their risk of occurrence even further, by another two percent.
O'BRIEN: So, even with those limitations of which women could benefit from this drug, how big of a deal is this? How significant is this finding?
LOVE: Well, it's more significant from a scientific standpoint than it is to the individual woman. We didn't know whether we could do serial hormonal drugs and whether that would have an additional benefit. And this study clearly shows that it does.
The benefit's not that huge. Really the recurrence goes from 95 percent to -- I mean chance of survival goes from 95 percent to 97 percent. So women are going to really have to weigh the risks of taking the drug versus a fairly small benefit.
O'BRIEN: Well give me a sense of what the risks are before I talk to you about -- what I'm hearing is caution in your voice that some of the researchers, others, do not have. So first the risks.
LOVE: The risk is -- one of the risks that they found after only two years of using the drug, was osteoporosis. There was an increase in osteoporosis.
In addition, there are side effects to the drug. It eliminates all estrogen. So you have hot flashes. You have a lot of the menopausal symptoms. And you also have muscular aches and pains that to some women can be quite disabling.
O'BRIEN: Some researchers have said when they've heard this news, this is life-saving. Let's shout it from the mountain top. And you're sounding a much more cautious note. I'm curious why.
LOVE: Yes. Well, because, I mean, it's good. But to say that this is life-saving, there are still lots of women who are going to take this drug who will still get a recurrence of breast cancer.
It does give you another small additional benefit, and it does give us a new clue that we can use a series of hormonal drugs. But I certainly wouldn't call this the answer to breast cancer by any means.
O'BRIEN: Dr. Susan Love, a benefit to patients and a clue for researchers. Thanks for joining us this morning with your insight. Appreciate it.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired October 10, 2003 - 09:20 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: A drug is offering new hope to hundreds of thousands of breast cancer patients. FEMARA can reduce the risk of occurrence by nearly half. That's according to "The New England Journal of Medicine."
For every one hundred patients, FEMARA prevented six women from getting new or recurring cancer. The results, in fact, were so dramatic that researchers stopped the trial early so that all the women in the trial could start taking the drug.
Joining us this morning from Los Angeles to discuss the findings, Dr. Susan Love. She is an oncologist and also the author of "Dr. Susan Love's Breast Book." Good morning, nice to see you Dr. Love. Thanks for joining us.
DR. SUSAN LOVE, ONCOLOGIST: Good morning. Nice to be here.
O'BRIEN: Thank you very much. Give us a sense of how many women we are talking about will be affected by this news?
LOVE: Well first of all, it's important to note that this drug only works in post-menopausal women. It doesn't work in pre- menopausal women because it interferes with the production of estrogen post-menopausely. And secondly, it only works for people whose tumors are sensitive to estrogen.
So what they did is they gave the drug to women who had already taken Tamoxifen for five years, a drug that blocks estrogen. And they found that once they stopped Tamoxifen if they took this drug, letrozole, they could reduce their risk of occurrence even further, by another two percent.
O'BRIEN: So, even with those limitations of which women could benefit from this drug, how big of a deal is this? How significant is this finding?
LOVE: Well, it's more significant from a scientific standpoint than it is to the individual woman. We didn't know whether we could do serial hormonal drugs and whether that would have an additional benefit. And this study clearly shows that it does.
The benefit's not that huge. Really the recurrence goes from 95 percent to -- I mean chance of survival goes from 95 percent to 97 percent. So women are going to really have to weigh the risks of taking the drug versus a fairly small benefit.
O'BRIEN: Well give me a sense of what the risks are before I talk to you about -- what I'm hearing is caution in your voice that some of the researchers, others, do not have. So first the risks.
LOVE: The risk is -- one of the risks that they found after only two years of using the drug, was osteoporosis. There was an increase in osteoporosis.
In addition, there are side effects to the drug. It eliminates all estrogen. So you have hot flashes. You have a lot of the menopausal symptoms. And you also have muscular aches and pains that to some women can be quite disabling.
O'BRIEN: Some researchers have said when they've heard this news, this is life-saving. Let's shout it from the mountain top. And you're sounding a much more cautious note. I'm curious why.
LOVE: Yes. Well, because, I mean, it's good. But to say that this is life-saving, there are still lots of women who are going to take this drug who will still get a recurrence of breast cancer.
It does give you another small additional benefit, and it does give us a new clue that we can use a series of hormonal drugs. But I certainly wouldn't call this the answer to breast cancer by any means.
O'BRIEN: Dr. Susan Love, a benefit to patients and a clue for researchers. Thanks for joining us this morning with your insight. Appreciate it.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
