By IANS
Abu Dhabi/Paris : The incidence of breast cancer is increasing rapidly across the Middle East, said doctors from UAE who met in Paris at the 2nd Middle East and Africa Oncology summit.
However, the medical experts agreed that the patients in the region suffering from the disease are living longer, WAM news agency reported.
The good news though, said the doctors from Abu Dhabi's Tawam Hospital, is that breast cancer cases (in UAE) are being caught much earlier, a critical factor in successful treatment of the chronic disease.
Prevention, early diagnosis and proper treatment are the only ways to bring down breast cancer statistics in the UAE. But for post-menopausal women, not all current treatments are safe and effective.
For many years, adjuvant Tamoxifen has been the gold standard for endocrine therapy in early breast cancer. In recent trials, however, third generation aromatase inhibitors, such as Letrozole, have been shown to be more effective than Tamoxifen in advanced disease, neoadjuvant therapy, and adjuvant therapy.
"Endocrine therapy, such as Letrozole, remains a very powerful approach to treating breast cancer in post-menopausal women, and with very low levels of toxicity," said Ian Smith, Professor of Cancer Medicine at the Royal Marsden Hospital and Institute of Cancer Research in London.