Nolvadex - Protect Women
Breast cancer
Breast cancer is still the main cause of death of women in Great Britain as well as worldwide. At the same time, there are more and more cancer patients among young people (the oldest patients are 90 years old, the youngest patients are 13 years old!), and number of cancer patients keeps increasing. Nowadays, on average, one in eight women in the world is a cancer patient.
There is an interesting fact: As a whole, there are less breast cancer patients then lung cancer patients (as everybody knows, breast of women and breast of men consist of identical tissue but there are less 1% of general amount of breast cancer patients among men).
That’s why, the main problems of modern public health services are prevention, early detection, and medical treatment of breast cancer.
The world medical community knows how to prevent and to diagnose cancer, but cancer treatment is more difficult thing.
Different methods of cancer treatment
There were (and there are) different methods of cancer treatment: surgery treatment, radiotherapy, and medical treatment including targeted therapy. But every method has indication and contraindications as well as rather serious adverse effects. That’s why fifty years ago it was difficult to imagine that the medicines with low toxicity against breast cancer would be found.
History of Nolvadex
The preconditions for endocrine therapy of breast cancer were about 100 years ago. At the end of XIX century, scientists came to a conclusion that some patients had hormone-dependent carcinoma.
One of the first scientists who noticed and described this phenomenon was a Scottish doctor George Batson. He was the first scientist who proposed to use the oophorectomy method to treat breast cancer. Batson noticed that nursing doe rabbit breast atrophies slowly after oophorectomy. He suggested that human tumours could be treated in such a way.
In 1896, George Batson was convinced that female tumour began to develop more slowly after they had oophorectomy for various reasons. As he understood that ovaries were the main estrogen source, he suggested a hypothesis that tumorous activity of breast directly depends of female sex hormones. That means that it is necessary to create antiestrogens. This discovery was the basis of hormonotherapy against breast cancer.
During the next 50 years, many scientists tried to treat the tumour with different medicines. Although some of them had a success, keeping developments seemed to be hopeless because of adverse effects.
In 1962, while creating contraceptives, the specialists of the imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) company made a bad antiestrogen substance.
Although the team of the project wanted to keep studying of created molecule and to establish effective effects of such medicines upon cancer tumours, research was stopped because of more priority activities of the company.
In the early 1970s, the situation was changed. Fight against cancer was one of the main constituents of research developments of world pharmaceutical companies. The ICI began also to create anticancer drugs.
In 1971, the first clinical trials of the substance "tamoxifen" developed in 1960s were in Manchester. As a result, effectiveness of the molecule against breast cancer. The next year, the research confirmed the data received earlier. Non-official father of tamoxifen was outstanding American scientist V.C. Jordan. He was the first scientist who proposed to use tamoxifen to prevent breast cancer as well as he was the first scientist who developed the main principles of antihormone adjuvant therapy.
Two years later the ICI appreciated successful developments and despite financial straits the ICI began to do marketing of the medicine in USA as it was the medicine against breast cancer, and the ICI put the tamoxifen brand "Nolvadex" on the market. In 1977, the FDA approved tamoxiphen as a medicine against dissemination breast cancer and the FDA approved tamoxiphen for adjuvant therapy a bit later.
Specialists about tamoxifen
According to specialists, the tamoxifen discovery was a real breakthrough of oncology. However, dependence of therapeutic benefit and side effect on a dose and duration of taking of the medecine led to vigilance. Scientists are still not absolutely sure that during their treatment patients have no medicine resistance, or medicine insusceptibleness which may lead to disappearing of antimeoplastic action of the molecule.
Basing on the anxiety, the ICI company made extensive research according the results of which doses were determined and schemes of treatment were developed.
In 80s of the last century, a group of researchers published a series of articles on the subject. Their research showed high effectiveness of preventing of some disease expressions on the condition that tamoxifen was taken during some years after chemotherapy.
Despite dependence of therapeutic benefit and side effect on a dose and duration of taking of the medecine, tamoxifen was a real breakthrough of oncology as it was a gold standard of treatment of breast cancer during more then 25 years.
During this period, a lot of tractates registered reducing of frequency of relapses and medicine mortality. The Oxford Reviews of the Joint Team of Early Stage of Breast Cancer Researchers showed that on some conditions tamoxifen could halve frequency of relapsees of the disease (41%) and tamoxifen could take breast cancer mortality a third (34%). The effects were not changed during about 15 years after it was diagnosed.
Other methods of treatment had no strongly pronounced and long-term effect at relatively moderate toxicity and affordability of the medicine.
Beside that, tamoxifen was the first breast cancer prophylaxis medicine for healthy women who had a high risk of development of the disease approved by the FDA in 1998.
In 2013, the Department of Health and Social Care of Great Britain developed a new breast cancer prophylaxis program. The Department of Health and Social Care of Great Britain published a manual for doctors from England and Wales. The manual requires women daily taking of tamoxifen during five years. In doctors’ judgement, it might reduce a risk of development of breast cancer by 40%. The Department of Health and Social Care of Scotland supported this initiative. Perhaps, Irland will also practice daily taking of tamoxifen during five years by women.
Such a manual was the first manual in Europe. Until now, medicines were proposed for women who had diagnosed disease.
One more indication of the medicine should be made. If you Google "tamoxifen/nolvadex", you will see a lot of information about the tamoxifen enrichment of food for body-builders and tamoxifen taking as a fat-burning medicine!
Body builders and Nolvadex
Authors of the materials notice that currently tamoxifen/”Nolvadex” is the most popular antiestrogen among sportsmen and body-builders.
As it can block estrogen effects, it is also popular among people who take anabolic steroids.
Many steroids may convert into estrogen under impact of aromatase enzymes. This may cause an imbalance of ratio of androgens and estrogen causing retention of water in the organism. High estrogen level may also cause men breast augmentation and increasing of subcutaneous fat layer which covers muscles. Many body-builders take "Nolvadex" to fight against the symptoms (although recently a medicine of wider spectrum has been invented, "Nolvadex" is still the cheapest and the most reasonable).
Web and forum visitors assert that the medicine helps to keep diet as it maintains the process of fat burning because of its antiestrogen action though it does not burn directly fat.
Anyway, prescription of the medicine is the breast cancer therapy.
There is a good reason for the WHO to register the medicine as a life-saving medicine against breast cancer.
