New advances cut breast cancer toll

From the archive, first published Friday 19th May 2000.

Oxford cancer expert Prof Sir Richard Peto revealed today that breast cancer deaths have dropped by a quarter, writes Reg Little.

Sir Richard delivered a message of hope to millions of women after years of working on various cancer treatments.

He helped establish the potential of the previously under-used drug tamoxifen, showing it could save 20,000 women a year, if given after breast cancer surgery. And in today's Lancet, Sir Richard, co-director of the Imperial Cancer Research Fund's Clinical Trial Unit in Oxford, announced one of the biggest success stories in the battle with cancer. He said that better use of treatments had led to a drop in cancer death rates of at least 25 per cent in women aged from 20 to 69 in the UK and the United States saving the lives of 20,000 women in the UK and 40,000 in the US.

He said: "This is the first time better treatment of any type of cancer has produced such a rapid decrease in national death rates.

"And premature death rates are continuing to decrease rapidly."

He attributed the reduction in mortality to the use of tamoxifen, screening, early surgery and chemotherapy. Sir Richard, 56, has worked for 30 years alongside Sir Richard Doll, who first showed in the 1950s that smoking was a major cause of lung cancer.

Thousands of patients, GPs and hospitals across the world have been involved in the Oxford unit's cancer research projects to find improved treatments.

One study now under way is to look at the death toll in Russia from vodka abuse.

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