In accordance with the cancer cases survey, there are more than 215,000 women have been diagnosed as breast cancer patients every year. For most of them, surgical treatment to remove the tumor is just the initial step in the battle against the illness, often followed by radiation or chemotherapy. In addition, they might have to consider whether to take the adjuvant treatment or not to effectively prevent the recurrence of breast cancer.

When a woman's breast cancer does come back or propagates to other areas of the body, the woman might be at greater risk of dying from the disease. Women whose breast cancer is observed in the nearby lymph nodes at medical diagnosis and people who acquire chemotherapy after surgery are considered to be at higher risk for breast cancer recurrence.

Postmenopausal women whose early-stage breast cancer is hormone-sensitive have a new choice as their first hormone therapy right after surgery. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently authorised Femara (letrozole tablets) on December 28, 2005 for this type of use. This acceptance was based upon a median of two years of therapy. The research is still ongoing to discover the long-term safety and efficiency of Femara. Already a leading breast cancer treatment, Femara is already the only medicine in a group called aromatase inhibitors that is recognized to be used both immediately following surgical procedure and after 5 years of tamoxifen. The FDA granted Femara a priority review, a distinction reserved for medications that can perhaps provide a considerable development compared to products at present on the market.

A panel from the American Society of Clinical Oncology, the country's main group of oncologists, suggests aromatase inhibitors, like Femara, be part of the optimal adjuvant treatment for this group of women.

"One of the greatest worries confronted by women who are already medicated for early breast cancer is that their cancer will come back. With Femara, we certainly have a possibility that will help address that worry early on, even in patients who we realize encounter the greatest risk of recurrence," said Matthew Ellis, MD, PhD, FRCP, director of the Breast Cancer Program at Washington University in St. Louis.

In a large clinical analysis of post-surgery breast cancer treatment, researchers compared the effectiveness of Femara and tamoxifen, some other drug prescribed after surgery. An analysis performed after 26 months indicated that Femara reduced the risk of breast cancer coming back by 21% over the reduction offered by tamoxifen. Patients taking Femara also showed a 27 percent reduction in the risk of the cancer dispersing to distant body parts.

In this study, women at increased risk of recurrence experienced the greatest benefit from Femara. Femara decreased this risk by twenty nine percent in women whose breast cancer had already metastasize towards the lymph nodes during the time of diagnosis and by 30 % in women who had prior chemotherapy. The outcomes also showed that during these high-risk women, Femara reduced the potential risk of cancer spreading to distant parts of the body by 33 percent and 31 %, respectively.

From the research above, we can see that the Femara treatment will not induce any bad effect to the patients. The side effects such as joint pain, weight gain and so on are really scary.

Last but not least, the recurrence of breast cancer can be prevented if the Femara is fully utilized by the doctor. Maybe we just need more time to be confident with this new product.