Estrogen

joellelee, have you asked your oncologist to provide you with comparisons of treatment options from adjuvent online?

For some women, with low risk of recurrance, the benefit will only be 5% reduction in their actual risk.  If the treatment cuts the risk in half, and you only had a 10% risk of recurrance, then the benefit would only be 5%.  But, that depends on the initial risk.  You can't reduce by much the risk of an event that has a low likelihood.

And how many vegan-gluten-free-no-alcohol-no-smoking-no family history-slender-athletic women on these boards still developed breast cancer?  There are quite a few.

Breast cancer simply doesn't discriminate.  Period.  Every woman is at risk... and some men too.  If it's built into our genetic code that we are going to get breast cancer, we get it.  A few things may exacerbate that risk, but there isn't much we can do to prevent it.  Changing our diets will only help our overall health, but it won't prevent cancer or cancer recurrence.

Tamoxifen 50% ???  Timothy, you are using  relative risk statistics which the National Cancer Institute says should not be used because they are misleading. Please use the more accurate absolute risk statistics.

No way, no how, does Tamoxifen confer 50% OVERALL SURVIVAL benefit. That's why some countries don't use it. Even the original manufacturer doesn't claim more than 2.5% OVERALL SURVIVAL for node negative women. Since the manufacturer's report, more studies have been done. The ATLAS trial found Tamoxifen had little if any OVERALL SURVIVAL benefit. Don't be mislead by recurrence stats. What counts is how long you walk the earth. Tamox make lessen your breast cancer recurrence but kill you off sooner with uterine cancer, fatal blood clots, etc.

I am perfectly comfortable and I am most certainly not bullying anyone.

http://www.ascopost.com/issues/february-15,-2013/for-lobular-carcinoma,-letrozole-works-better-than-tamoxifen.aspx

For the record, I worked for several years in the research department of an international pharmaceutical firm.  I am well aware of the scope and the limits of clinical trials and statistics.  Like Momine, I am, also, annoyed because you fail to discriminate between solid information based on prospective studies and "hot air" as Momine put it.  Furthermore, you didn't "just" share your information with us; you professed yourself "shocked" that some of us would take tamoxifen based on your understanding of the information you googled... and we all know how accurate and up-to-date Dr. Google is.

Thing is... you made a pretty sweeping assumption based on questionable science from a source that is, rather notoriously, unreliable and, then, basically questioned the intelligence of anyone who makes the decision to take tamoxifen, completely ignoring their thought processes and the decision-making it took to get there.  Hence my annoyance.

The comment that studies can be biased is not without merit, especially given your stance that "your" study is the one with true value.  You need to consider the possibility that the study that you are professing to be your "proof" that tamoxifen will kill you faster than breast cancer will is biased in it's own way, as well.  Look at the source, the researcher, the agencies funding the research, the type of study chosen (retrospective vs. prospective), the age of the data studied, the demographic of the patients, the inclusion/exclusion criteria... all these things are going to affect the conclusions drawn.

The results of one study is not conclusive evidence that something is true.  Neither are the results of two studies.  Study results need to be proven - over and over again - before they can be considered conclusive or practice-changing.  Tamoxifen was has thirty years of research and countless studies proving that it can- and does prolong survival for a significant number of women.  Is it perfect?  No.  Taking tamoxifen does not mean that you will never get metastasis.  Cancer makes that decision, but thirty years of science has proven that tamoxifen does help.

So, to answer the question you posed in your post, THAT's why we bother taking tamoxifen.  That's why we risk the side effects.  There is just too much scientific evidence that it DOES make a difference.

And what on earth has my decision to keep my treatment protocol private got to do with anything?

A lot of us tune out name-calling such as characterizing someone as "disdainful" or "tin hat."

Joellelee - what percentage risk of recurrence did your doctors give you if you did not have chemo and/or hormone drugs? I just put your stats into LifeMath and without hormone treatment or chemo you would have a 48% chance of surviving. With treatment that is improved to 84%. I don't know where your doctor got 3 - 5% - maybe you misunderstood and he was only talking about radiation.

This whole thing makes my brain hurt.

I have no SE from tamox, but am post menopausal or in menopause now. I sometimes wonder if I am on right drug. I have asked all my oncologists they all say stay on tamox

Joelle, I am an ILC woman, and I am fully aware of the latest research on tamox vs letrozole for ILC. I am also aware of the budwig diet. Flax is controversial for ER+ cancers, in the sense that nobody can seem to decide if it is good or bad for us. There is a large study underway on the issue of lignans in breast cancer, but we probably won't have results for quite a while.