The carpal tunnel syndrome side effect from a medication found to reduce women’s risk of death from breast cancer can be managed and does not persist upon completed treatment, according to a study published in The Lancet Oncology.
The Intergroup Exemestane Study involving more than 4700 women has previously shown that women switched to exemestane after 2 to 3 years of tamoxifen therapy were less likely to experience disease recurrence or death compared with women receiving tamoxifen for the entire 5-year treatment period. However, a higher percentage of patients in the exemestane group (42.4%) reported musculoskeletal symptoms during treatment compared with the tamoxifen group (33.2%). More specifically, carpal tunnel syndrome was present in approximately 2.8% of exemestane patients compared with 0.3% of the tamoxifen patients.
The Institute of Cancer Research and Imperial College London in the UK and Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands now report that the carpal tunnel syndrome among patients in this study lasted for 6 months on average. It was successfully treated with surgery for a majority of the patients. In fact, very few patients withdrew from treatment as a result of carpal tunnel syndrome.
According to professor Judith Bliss, director of the Clinical Trials and Statistics Unit at The Institute of Cancer Research, “The rate of carpal tunnel syndrome was higher in women who switched to exemestane than in those treated only with tamoxifen. We found more than half of patients who developed this side-effect had surgery, but the vast majority were able to continue their treatment for breast cancer and did not experience carpal tunnel syndrome once their treatment had concluded.”
Martin Ledwick, Cancer Research UK’s head information nurse, said, “This gives clinicians more information with which to help patients make fully informed treatment decisions. It is worth noting that carpal tunnel syndrome is usually treated successfully and this needs to be considered when balancing severity of side effects against benefits of different treatment options.”
Source: ICR.