Anastrozole was recommended for the first time as a preventive option by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) in 2017, however, as the treatment was not authorized for this use, absorption remained low, reports Independent.
Now the drug has been authorized by the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency as a preventative option as well.
NHS Chief Executive Amanda Pritchard said: “It’s fantastic that this vital risk-reducing option could now help thousands of women and their families avoid the suffering of a breast cancer diagnosis. Enabling more women to live healthier lives free of breast cancer is truly remarkable and we hope that the authorization of anastrozole for a new use today is the first step in ensuring that this risk reduction option is accessible to all people who could benefit This is the first medicine to be re-engineered through a new world-leading program to help us realize the full potential of existing medicines in new uses to save and improve more lives in the NHS.
Thanks to this initiative, we hope that greater access to anastrozole could enable more women to take risk-reducing measures if they choose, helping them live without the fear of breast cancer.”
These measures add to the NHS’s arsenal of drugs to prevent breast cancer, with tamoxifen and raloxifene already licensed to prevent breast cancer.
The treatment is administered in the form of a 1 mg tablet, once a day, for five years, and works by reducing the amount of estrogen hormones produced by the patient’s body by blocking an enzyme called aromatase.
The most common side effects of the drug are hot flashes, feeling weak, joint pain/stiffness, arthritis, skin rashes, nausea, headache, osteoporosis and depression.
Delyth Morgan, chief executive of the charity Breast Cancer Now, said: “Extending the license of anastrozole to cover its use as a risk-reducing treatment is a major step forward which will allow more eligible women with a significant family history of breast cancer to reduce their chances of developing the disease.”
Health Secretary Will Quince said: “Breast cancer is the most common cancer in the UK, so I am delighted that another effective drug to help prevent this cruel disease has now been approved. We have already seen the positive effect on which anastrozole can have in treating the disease when it was detected in postmenopausal women and now we can use it to prevent it from developing in some women.”
2023-11-07 07:38:23
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