Calendar An icon of a desk calendar. Cancel An icon of a circle with a diagonal line across. Caret An icon of a block arrow pointing to the right. Email An icon of a paper envelope. Facebook An icon of the Facebook "f" mark. Google An icon of the Google "G" mark. Linked In An icon of the Linked In "in" mark. Logout An icon representing logout. Profile An icon that resembles human head and shoulders. Telephone An icon of a traditional telephone receiver. Tick An icon of a tick mark. Is Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes. Is Not Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes with a diagonal line through it. Pause Icon A two-lined pause icon for stopping interactions. Quote Mark A opening quote mark. Quote Mark A closing quote mark. Arrow An icon of an arrow. Folder An icon of a paper folder. Breaking An icon of an exclamation mark on a circular background. Camera An icon of a digital camera. Caret An icon of a caret arrow. Clock An icon of a clock face. Close An icon of the an X shape. Close Icon An icon used to represent where to interact to collapse or dismiss a component Comment An icon of a speech bubble. Comments An icon of a speech bubble, denoting user comments. Comments An icon of a speech bubble, denoting user comments. Ellipsis An icon of 3 horizontal dots. Envelope An icon of a paper envelope. Facebook An icon of a facebook f logo. Camera An icon of a digital camera. Home An icon of a house. Instagram An icon of the Instagram logo. LinkedIn An icon of the LinkedIn logo. Magnifying Glass An icon of a magnifying glass. Search Icon A magnifying glass icon that is used to represent the function of searching. Menu An icon of 3 horizontal lines. Hamburger Menu Icon An icon used to represent a collapsed menu. Next An icon of an arrow pointing to the right. Notice An explanation mark centred inside a circle. Previous An icon of an arrow pointing to the left. Rating An icon of a star. Tag An icon of a tag. Twitter An icon of the Twitter logo. Video Camera An icon of a video camera shape. Speech Bubble Icon A icon displaying a speech bubble WhatsApp An icon of the WhatsApp logo. Information An icon of an information logo. Plus A mathematical 'plus' symbol. Duration An icon indicating Time. Success Tick An icon of a green tick. Success Tick Timeout An icon of a greyed out success tick. Loading Spinner An icon of a loading spinner. Facebook Messenger An icon of the facebook messenger app logo. Facebook An icon of a facebook f logo. Facebook Messenger An icon of the Twitter app logo. LinkedIn An icon of the LinkedIn logo. WhatsApp Messenger An icon of the Whatsapp messenger app logo. Email An icon of an mail envelope. Copy link A decentered black square over a white square.

Research shows breast cancer can resurface 15 years after treatment

Patients who appear cancer free when they stop therapy may relapse many years later with tumours spreading through their body, new research shows. (Rui Vieira/PA Wire)
Patients who appear cancer free when they stop therapy may relapse many years later with tumours spreading through their body, new research shows. (Rui Vieira/PA Wire)

BREAST CANCER can resurface after remaining dormant for 15 years following successful treatment, a study has found.

Patients who appear cancer free when they stop therapy may relapse many years later with tumours spreading through their body, new research shows.

Scientists analysed data from 88 clinical trials involving 62,923 women, all of whom had the most common form of breast cancer fuelled by the hormone oestrogen.

Every patient received pill treatments such as tamoxifen or aromatase inhibitors which block the effects of oestrogen or shut off the hormone’s supply.

After five years of therapy, their cancers had gone. But monitoring the women’s progress revealed recurrences of the disease up to 15 years later – 20 years after initial diagnosis.

Lead researcher Dr Hongchao Pan, from Oxford University, said: “It is remarkable that breast cancer can remain dormant for so long and then spread many years later, with this risk remaining the same year after year and still strongly related to the size of the original cancer and whether it had spread to the (lymph) nodes.”

Women who started off with large tumours and cancer that had spread to four or more lymph nodes faced the highest risk of recurrence, the study showed. They had a 40% risk of cancer returning in a different part of the body over a period of 15 years after stopping treatment.

For patients diagnosed with small, low-grade cancers that had not spread the risk was 10%.

Recent research has suggested that extending hormone therapy to 10 years may be more effective at preventing breast cancer recurrence and death.

Doctors have long known that five years of tamoxifen reduces the risk of recurrence by about a third in the five years after stopping treatment.

Aromatase inhibitors, which only work for post-menopausal women, are believed to be even more effective.

However some patients choose to halt hormone treatments early because of side effects such as menopausal symptoms, osteoporosis, joint pain or carpal tunnel syndrome.

The research is published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Co-author Dr Richard Gray, also from Oxford University, said: “To assess 20-year risks, we had to study women who received their breast cancer diagnosis many years ago. We know that treatments have improved since then, so recurrence rates will be somewhat lower for women who were diagnosed more recently.”