The rising rate of breast cancer in Britain could be curbed if drugs were given to high-risk patients to try to prevent the illness, according to an international panel of experts.
Scans are currently the top option for detecting and monitoring breast cancer, but leading cancer doctors now believe those at high risk should be offered medication.
Trials of drugs already prescribed to treat breast cancer have shown to reduce the chances of patients developing the disease by around a third, the doctors say.
In the journal Lancet Oncology, chairman of the panel Professor Jack Cuzick, a Cancer Research UK epidemiologist based at Queen Mary, University of London, writes: "There's strong evidence to show that drugs such as tamoxifen are effective at preventing breast cancer in women with greater than average risk of the disease.
"But it's important to find ways of predicting who will respond, so drugs like this can be targeted at those most likely to benefit and least likely to experience side-effects."
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