Studies Showing Effectiveness of Lower Doses of Tamoxifen

Just wanted to share this. An article came out showing that 5mg of tamoxifen can be just as effective as the standard 20mg dose. I will post the original article in the comments below, along with a couple other articles that people asked to see (in another thread).

With all of us nervous about or suffering from side effects on the standard 20mg dose, this provides some hope that maybe we can keep up tamoxifen but on a lower dosage to minimize (or maybe even avoid!) SEs.

Part of why I'm interested in this is I've started tamoxifen at half dose (10mg) and have been doing pretty well, but am nervous about going up to full dose. My onc blessed the half dose start but only for a month and it's been 6 weeks - I see him next week and we will see what he says on full vs half dose. My Dad who is a retired oncologist thinks I should stay on half dose due to my smaller size. He's the one that first pointed me to this article from a breast cancer symposium he went to.

Below are some of the studies I found, and if anyone else finds other stuff to support a lower dosage, please share it too!

5mg vs 20mg for DCIS

https://www.medpagetoday.com/meetingcoverage/sabcs/76757

10mg (and other) Doses & Combinations vs 20mg for Various Scenarios

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4053098/

10mg vs 20mg Tamoxifen in Pre-Menopausal Women

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/10576237/

This article references studies that do and don't show lower doses are just as effective

https://academic.oup.com/jnci/article/95/11/766/2520250

Domino showing the study! See the full abstract posted below.

Update

Update! Original article has finally surfaced online and you can also read it here:

http://www.ascopost.com/issues/january-25-2019/

Here is the actual study!

http://www.ascopost.com/issues/january-25-2019/low-dose-tamoxifen-in-women-with-preinvasive-breast-lesions/

Last one. Someone asked me to post this article too from the breast cancer symposium newsletter.

(Finally surfaced online here:

http://www.ascopost.com/issues/january-25-2019/preventing-locoregional-recurrence-of-breast-cancer-should-not-deter-efforts-to-decelerate-therapy/

Back to the dosage on tamoxifen, hopefully with lower yet still effective doses, we can go from feeling like the left most to the right most pics as demonstrated by Domino and Kit Kat.

PebblesV-thanks for providing all of this information and for the cute doggie pictures too! I think I like your dad's opinion as well...

It is promising to think they are working to further reduce overtreatment in early stage, low-risk tumors. Many of us probably had the Oncotype dx test, but I have seen a few articles posted within the past 2 years that indicate the Mammaprint test is identifying what they call "ultra low-risk" tumors that may not need any further treatment beyond surgery alone (not even radiation or hormonal tx)! 

You're welcome ladies! Looks like the article from the journal has finally been posted online - here's the link!

http://www.ascopost.com/issues/january-25-2019/preventing-locoregional-recurrence-of-breast-cancer-should-not-deter-efforts-to-decelerate-therapy/

GreenHarbor - if there's something good we can get from all this, I'm glad Domino and Kit Kat and Tucker help.

Dolcevita - I was really surprised when starting this journey how aggressive the treatment is for something that is supposed to be early stage and very beatable. Agree with you that at least they are going in the right direction to reduce over treatment. Still a long way to go and why we all need to research and make the right decisions for ourselves.

Purplecat - please keep me posted on what your team says about this as well!

One more Domino pic below, putting herself very much in the way of my intended spring cleaning (but gets forgiven for all the cuteness!)...

And Tucker demonstrating how Mondays feel.