Life Expectancy with LCIS

Yes, that's what the paper says, but remember that they are dealing with averages. So 'on average', life expectancy only increases by approx. 6 months for those with LCIS who take Tamoxifen, but that doesn't mean that every woman who takes Tamox only gets a 6 month benefit (in terms of extended lifespan). In reality, many if not most of the women aren't going to see any survival benefit at all either because:

- They were never going to get breast cancer anyway, despite having LCIS - therefore Tamoxifen has no impact on survival.

- They were going to get breast cancer but they would have survived it; now maybe they don't get breast cancer because they take Tamox, or they do get breast cancer but they still survive it - therefore Tamoxifen has no impact on survival.

- Note that most people would consider that there is a benefit from the Tamoxifen for those who avoid being diagnosed even though they would have survived anyway; it's just not a benefit in terms of extended survival, which is what this study is measuring.

- They were going to get breast cancer and were going to succumb to it and despite taking Tamoxifen, that still happens - therefore Tamoxifen has no impact on survival.

And then there are the small number of other women who are significantly affected and who receive the maximum benefit:

- These are the women who would have been diagnosed with breast cancer and would have succumbed to it, but because of the Tamoxifen, they never are diagnosed with breast cancer and live out their full lives.

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Here's an example of how it might work with 3 groups of 100 women each, all of whom have LCIS at age 50, averaging out to a lifespan of 82 years for the No Treatment group, 82.5 for the Tamoxifen group, and 83 for the PBMX group:

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You can see that most of the women who take Tamoxifen (or have a PBMX) don't see any change in their long-term survival, but for the few who do, the benefit is signficant in that they live an additional 20 - 28 years (using the numbers in my example; the real numbers of course would vary by individual).

Lisa---my mom is still going strong at almost 30 years since diagnosis and tamox (ILC); for me, it's been 13 years already, I hope I follow in her footsteps !

Anne