A newer drug clearly outperforms tamoxifen at preventing breast cancer from returning and should become the first-choice treatment for most women who have had the disease, doctors are reporting. The drug, Arimidex, might be able to prevent 70 percent to 80 percent of the most common type of tumors that occur in women after menopause, compared with the 50 percent that tamoxifen is credited with warding off, their research suggests. Women who took Arimidex for five years after they were treated for early-stage breast cancer were less likely to have cancer recur, develop in the other breast, or spread throughout their bodies than women who took tamoxifen.
