Here's a Boston Globe story that ran last week:
Synthetic estrogen is found promising
Early tests show benefits in post-menopausal drug
By Richard A. Knox, Globe Staff, 05/13/98
<Picture>newly marketed ''designer estrogen'' called raloxifene may partially protect postmenopausal women against heart disease and breast cancer as well as bone-thinning osteoporosis, according to a study published today and another due next week.
One study found the synthetic estrogen reduced women's levels of ''bad cholesterol'' almost as much as natural estrogen. Another, to be presented next Monday, has found a dramatic reduction in breast cancer among women who took raloxifene compared to those who got a placebo, or inert tablet.
The new data may point the way out of a maze of medical decision-making that forces many women to choose natural estrogen's beneficial effects on their bones, heart, and arteries or an increased risk of breast and uterine cancer and other unwanted side effects, such as vaginal bleeding and breast tenderness.
That Hobson's choice has kept the great majority of women from embracing postmenopausal estrogen treatment, and nearly half of those who start it quit within a year.
Raloxifene is among the first of an expected series of modified estrogen-like drugs designed to provide some of the benefits of natural estrogen without the downsides.
The US Food and Drug Administration approved raloxifene last December for preventing osteoporosis, the bone-thinning disease that leads to fractures of the hip, spine and other bones in the last third of life, when women's natural estrogen levels wane. Raloxifene is marketed by Eli Lilly & Co. under the trade name Evista.
However, experts urge caution about raloxifene, because no one knows whether the tantalizing clues about its success in reducing risk factors will translate into lower rates of actual disease in the long term.
''I would say this is very preliminary data,'' said Dr. Rita Redberg, a cardiologist and specialist in women's health at the University of California at San Francisco. ''One thing you can say for sure is that women have more choices now.''
One factor likely to weigh heavy in the balance for many women is the indication that raloxifene might protect against breast cancer. Earlier studies have suggested that natural estrogen raises the risk of breast cancer by about 35 percent among postmenopausal women who take the hormone for 10 years or longer.
After observing more than 7,700 women on raloxifene or a placebo for 29 months, Steven R. Cummings of the University of California at San Francisco and his colleagues found about 70 percent fewer new cases of breast cancer in the raloxifene group.
Cummings will report the findings next week at the American Society of Clinical Oncology meetings in Los Angeles. The Wall Street Journal wrote about the overall finding last month after market analysts began talking about it.
Redberg and others pointed out that no study has continued long enough to know whether raloxifene will lower women's risk of heart attacks.
A six-month study of 390 postmenopausal women, published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association, indicates that raloxifene lowers women's LDL cholesterol by 12 percent; estrogen reduced this ''bad cholesterol'' by 14 percent.
''This 12 percent reduction in LDL could cause an 18 percent reduction in heart disease,'' said Dr. Brian W. Walsh of Brigham and Women's Hospital, lead author of the Lilly-funded study.
However, unlike estrogen, raloxifene did not raise women's HDL cholesterol - a ''good cholesterol'' that protects against heart disease.
This story ran on page A03 of the Boston Globe on 05/13/98.
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